


ain't no (fortunate) son

by devereauxing



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Child Abuse, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mostly Gen, Shippy Gen, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-06-25 21:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15649680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devereauxing/pseuds/devereauxing
Summary: Hyde hates her Ma, but she pities her too.





	1. childhood living is easy to do

When Suzie Hyde is ten years old she promises to herself she’ll never have sex.

She’s at Eric Forman’s house, hiding behind the kitchen door listening to Mr and Mrs Forman talk about her. About her, and her Ma and her D— and Bud. Her hair is wet from the bath, limp and stringy in her eyes, and Eric’s t-shirt is a little bit too small on her shoulders. Her dirty sneakers are in her hands because she can’t let them touch the floor, not this floor. It’s shiny and clean, she bets no dirty roaches have ever touched this floor.

“Oh, Red!” Mrs Forman exclaims. She sounds exasperated, like maybe this conversation has been going too long. “Just because Edna bounces mattress to mattress like a bedbug doesn’t mean little Suzie is headed the same way. She’s ten, Red! Ten!”

“Well, as far as I recall Edna didn’t start much older,” Mr Forman grumbles, the sound of a newspaper rustling.

Mrs Forman giggles, high pitched and nervous. Suzie clutches onto her sneakers a little tighter, and bites her lip. She knows they’re talking about sex, about her Ma and her ‘uncles’ and the weird noises she hears at night, and during the day. She also knows that she’s not really supposed to know what sex is, not like she does. Knows that the other girls at school gossip about what it could be, how it works, what it feels like.

Suzie never joins in those conversations, not that she’s ever invited to. Somehow she thinks it would be wrong to tell them what it is, how it works, and that the noises she hears make it sound scary and maybe like it’s not very fun, or nice, and that they shouldn’t ever do it.

“She seems like such a sweet girl, Red. A little thin, perhaps,” Mrs Forman says, and Mr Forman sighs. Suzie rolls her shoulders a little, feeling her borrowed shirt stretch with the motion. She doesn’t feel small, not when she’s stretching out Eric’s clothes and hiding behind the kitchen door taking up space that she feels she’s dirtying just by existing in. “But you heard what Eric said, how she stood up for him against those boys at school!”

“Fighting already,” Mr Forman interrupts.

“Well, I think it’s nice! Eric’s not hit his growth spurt yet, and it’s sweet that Suzie helped him out with those nasty bullies,” Mrs Forman sniffles a little. “My poor baby, getting picked on at school!”

Mr Forman laughs, “Kid should buckle down and fight his own battles, Kitty! When I was in Korea—”

“He’s not in Korea, Red!” Mrs Forman cries, her voice shrill and piercing. “He’s in elementary school, and that girl out there gave him a helping hand when he was in need. Now, she may not be from the best family, and yes perhaps her mother is the town slut! Maybe Suzie will end up the same way, but if you try and tell me again that that girl isn’t welcome for dinner, so help me God you will be sleeping on the couch tonight, Red!”

Suzie holds her breath and hugs her sneakers to her chest. A clump of dried mud falls to the floor, and forgetting her secret eavesdropping she lets out a dismayed yelp scrambling to her knees to pick it up.

The kitchen door opens, and Suzie looks up. Mr Forman is looking down at her, his expression severe.

Bolting back up with the wayward mud in hand, Suzie swallows nervously.

“Sorry, Sir. I, uh, I was coming to find you and Mrs Forman and thank you for, for—” she tugs at the hem of Eric’s shirt. “For letting me get clean, and borrow this shirt, and then some dirt fell off my sneakers and I’m so, _so_ sorry that I got the floor a bit dirty. I picked it up!” She shows him the dirt, now mangled a little in the palm of her hand, lingering dampness from her bath congulating with the dried dirt to form a muddy paste.

She quickly closes her hand, ducking her head to hide her blush.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, ashamed. She’d tried so hard not to dirty anything up, and she’d already failed. Not a surprise, but a reminder nonetheless that she didn’t belong in this house, this neighborhood, “I, uh, I should go home.”

“Red,” Mrs Forman says, and Mr Forman’s name drips with the weight of expectation, a lingering heaviness in the air which makes Suzie feel as if she’s breathing in the muddy pulp which oozes between her fingers where she’s shoved them in her back pocket. Out of sight, out of mind.

Mr Forman sighs, and steps aside. Holding the door open, he gestures into the kitchen. Suzie watches him, bewilderment painted across her features and eyes wide underneath the protective curtain her wet hair affords..

“I’ll drive you back home after you’ve had dinner,” he says.

Right then and there, following Mr Forman into the clean kitchen of the Forman house with Mrs Forman humming by the stove, Suzie swears she’ll never be like her Ma. She’ll never have sex, and she’ll never drink alcohol. She’s going to finish school, and she’s going to find a nice man like Mr Forman. She’s going to do everything right.

Two months later Suzie gets blamed for the diorama, and sat in front of the Principle trying to explain (“Please, Sir! I didn’t do it, I would _never_ do it! I know how hard she worked on it, and I—”) with his patronising stare (“Miss Hyde, we know that it was you. There’s really no point in pretending that any of the other children in the class would partake in such senseless destruction of another person’s property.”) hearing all of the words that aren’t being said ( _No one is ever going to believe that_ **_you_ ** _will be more than your parents_ ) Suzie realises that there’s little point in trying to be anything that what anyone expects her to be.

Not in Point Place, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Bud still leaves. Having a daughter instead of a son doesn’t make him the kind of man that sticks around, not for long. What it means that Edna stays, or at least as long as she’s able to, is different. Or at the very least what Edna staying (or leaving, and coming back, and leaving, and coming back) teaches is different.

Hyde (somewhere between elementary and high school  _Suzie_ becomes  _Hyde_ because she doesn’t want anyone looking at her and seeing anything but what they expect. Look at my hands, she thinks, look at my hands and not what’s happening behind the curtain. Look at my hands) still hates her. Watches her drink herself into a stupor every day, every night, every hazy dusky moment in between, and hates her for not being the kind of mother who cooks pancakes, and goes to school plays. The kind of mother who pays the goddamn gas bill, who isn’t paying their rent with open legs and a wandering hand when the landlord comes ‘round every second Friday.

Or maybe the kind of mother who makes sure she’s around to pay the landlord whichever way she can every second Friday, who doesn’t scoff one cold November evening at the eviction notice nailed to the door (Hyde shivering in a threadbare plaid shirt she’d secreted out of Donna’s closet a year back, tugging the too short sleeves with her trembling fingers and mumbling softly that yeah, Billy came over last week but she’d stayed curled up on her mattress biting her first bloody because she didn’t think he’d be able to hear her breathing, knew he couldn’t, but fuck, what if he _did_ —) and glare at her fifteen year old daughter because, “Thought you’d paid this time, what use are you?”

So, yeah, Hyde hates her but she pities her Ma too.

(“If Billy ever comes to door and I’m not here, Suze,” she’d slurred one night, gripping Hyde’s hand with the too thin fingers that result from money going to vodka, and cigarettes, and the little brown paper bags that she’s getting more and more careless about leaving around. Hyde had been on her way past the couch, sure that her Ma had passed out hours ago until her hand had shot out in the darkness, illuminated by the glow of the television humming in the background. Edna wrestled her way up into a sitting position, levering her weight against her daughters and squinted up at her, “Don’t you open it, don’t you even make a sound. Men like Billy... they aren’t kind to little girls like you, Suze. Men aren’t kind to little girls.”

Hyde had nodded quickly, curls bouncing against her forehead with the force. Her hair had been cut by Mrs Forman a couple of weeks back, much too short. She looked like she was one of the boys, and part of her had been so, so grateful for that as she’d looked in the mirror of their upstairs bathroom and twisted around, flattening her hands down her torso and desperately praying that she could just stay this flat, this boyish, this  _unnoticeable_ for a little while longer. Safe for just a few years more. But then, listening to Edna, she had realised that was a foolish wish. She had never been safe.

Stroking Edna’s hand where it gripped her she murmured, “Okay, Ma. I won’t let Billy in.”

Edna released her as if she’d been burned, the terrible softness which had touched the plains of her face restructuring itself into the harsh lines Hyde was accustomed to, and hacked out something that might have once resembled a laugh back before the alcohol, the cigarettes, the drugs and _Suzie_. She threw her head back, knocking over a precariously balanced bottle on the floor as her limbs went boneless with her mirth. Hyde inched back, rubbing where the vice of Edna’s hold had left her skin bloodless and hunched in on herself; Edna’s humour historically meant nothing good for her daughter.

“Oh,  _honey,”_ Edna had cackled, the endearment twisting on her tongue until it became a caricature of itself. “We both know that ain’t true. Apple don’t fall far from the tree, and just like me you’re rotten to the core.”

She’d lit another cigarette, waving at Hyde to leave her be again.

And though Hyde had left, hurried off to her room to hide under her sorry excuse for a winter blanket and read a pilfered school book by torchlight with silent, hot, angry tears running down her face she’d never forgotten that. Never forgotten the scared, haunted look in her Ma’s eyes that night so close to her twelfth birthday when she’d whispered to her to never open that door if Billy was there.)

It means something different that Edna stays as much as she’s able, because Hyde looks at her Ma and sees _potential._ Hyde looks at her Ma and see’s the stories played out on her slack face in the early dawn hours: the career she _could_ have had; the husband who would have treated her right; the children watching reruns of her shows on Sunday mornings. Hyde looks at her Ma and sees that she ruined her life, that the same damn thing could happen so easily to her. Men aren’t kind to little girls, and they don’t get any kinder when those same girls stop being so little. They take what they want and leave you stranded with the kid, the rent, the bills, and no way to pay for any of it but with your bitterness and that foul taste of what could have been that coats the back of your throat.

Edna tries to rid herself of that taste with vodka, and cigarettes, and whatever else she can find skulking the back alleys of Point Place.

Hyde hates her Ma, but she pities her too.

She won’t be her.

 

* * *

 

Hyde is fifteen, just, when she decides the ‘no sex’ promise is going out of the window. Everyone’s been whispering behind their hands at school about her ever since the party at Brad Chetley’s house last month anyway, not that she’d done anything. He’d approached her in the corridor outside History and smiled all broad and charming, asked her if she’d want to come and said that she could even bring her weird friends. She’d said yes before she’d even really known what was happening. He’d swaggered away, collecting arm punches from his buddies on the football team all the way and she’d known it was a mistake.

(“Oh, come _on_ Suzie!”

“Don’t call me that, Chet.”

“You know a girl like you only gets invited to an upperclassmen party for one reason, and I heard you’d be happy to help a guy out—”)

Regardless, the damage was done. People knew who she was now, and now that people knew who she was they remembered just who her Ma and Bud were and there was no escaping her inherited reputation.

(“ _Fuck_! That chick just fucking punched me, man! What a dyke.”

“Looks like she got you good, man. Can you even see outta that eye? She’s a tiny thing, man, she get a step ladder to reach?”

“Fuck you, Mac. She’s a freak.”)

And, well. She’d been ten when she’d said no sex, and… she wasn’t ten anymore. Sitting in Forman’s basement the other week, Kelso’s shirt had ridden up as he reached for the popsicle Donna had chucked on top of the television set and the sight of his tan skin had made her breath catch in her throat in a way that was entirely new. She’d been hanging out with the guy for years now, seen him without his shirt more times than she could count. She’d looked away quickly, punching Forman on the arm in the response to a quip she hadn’t quite heard. He'd thought whatever he'd said was funny though, which pretty much guaranteed it hadn't been.

But, no. No Point Place loser was gonna be able to sit at the Hub with his buddies and brag about the noises Suzie fucking Hyde made in the bed of his daddy’s truck. Or at least, no loser was gonna be able to sit at the Hub and say that shit and have it be true.

(Skip six months forward, and the basement is full minus Hyde. Kelso is perched precariously on the freezer lapping at a fudgsicle as Donna and Eric lounge on the couch bickering over whether Charlie’s Angels counts as softcore porn or not.

“Hey guys,” he interrupts, squinting at a pair of bikini clad boobs on the set. “You know I heard Hyde is, like, a wild cat in the sack.”

Eric and Donna look at him, Eric’s face outraged while Donna hums contemplatively.

“Apparently she’ll do it with everyone. Think she’d do it with me?” Kelso continues, and looks over at them as the show diverts from breast related closeups to something else.

Donna laughs, “Probably, man. Even I’ve heard she’s a bit of a slut.”

“Donna!” Eric shouts, jumping to his feet. He points at Kelso, then Donna, then back again while spluttering. “Hyde isn’t a, a—” he shakes his head overenthusiastically, like an enraged puppy. “Hyde isn’t a whore!”

“Relax, man,” Kelso says, leaning back onto the wall grinning dopily. “Never said she was, just… free with the lovin’.”

Donna stands, placing a hand on Eric’s arm, “Eric… I’m not saying she’s a hooker or anything, but come on. Even you must have heard the rumours.”

Eric wrests his arms away from Donna, and throws himself into Hyde’s chair. Crossing his arms angrily he glares up at Donna. “I know she’s my best friend and you’re both sitting in _my_ basement talking about stu— _shit_ you know nothing about.”

Kelso gets off the freezer and walks around to stand next to Donna. Holding his hands up in mock surrender he apologises, “Uh, sorry, dude.”

Donna shrugs, “Okay, sorry, Eric. Can we go back to watching porn now? Oh, wait, it’s Charlie’s Angels.” She laughs and goes to turn back to the couch, Kelso following.

“Actually, my mom said she wanted you guys to clear out early today,” Eric says, arms still crossed. Donna and Kelso share a look.

“Okay, Eric, we said we’re sorry!” Donna exclaims. “I don’t get why you’re being so _weird_ about this.”

“Oh my God!” Kelso shouts out of the blue, pointing at Eric. “You dog!”

Eric rolls his eyes, “What?”

“You totally did it with Hyde!” Kelso, again, shouts.

“Shut up!” Eric hisses, sitting up out of his tense slouch. “If my dad hears you shouting like that, he’ll kick _all_ of our asses you idiot!”

Donna gasps, looking between the two of them. Her face pales, “You did it with Hyde?” she asks.

“Of course not,” Eric scoffs. “If I’d done it with anybody, believe me, you’d have heard about it.”

Kelso grins and puts an arm across Donna’s shoulders. She pushes him away, crossing her arms across her stomach defensively. “Our little boy, a man!” Kelso says, fist pumping.

“Oh for fucksake, you dillhole,” Eric says, standing with enough force to send Hyde’s chair tipping over. Kelso and Donna jump at the sound, and Eric’s obvious anger. “She’s like my sister, man. I didn’t do it with her! I just don’t like you two talking about her behind her back about stuff you don’t know anything about.”

“Eric,” Donna says, brow furrowed. “I just don’t get why you’re so freakin’ pissed about this when you don’t give a damn about us calling Laurie a slut all day, every day. Hell, you call her a slut too!”

“Laurie _is_ a slut, Donna,” Eric shrugs. “And also, like, a total mega-bitch.”

“So, you’re saying that everything everyone says about Hyde is totally made up?” Donna asks.

Eric throws his hands in air, “Yes! Finally, God. Well, except the stoner stuff. She is kinda high most of the time.”

“Riiiiiiiiight,” Donna says, eyebrows raised. “Can we stay and watch Charlie’s Angels?”

“No.”

Kelso groans.)

Three weeks past her birthday she catches the bus to Kenosha, fake ID at the ready and an address for a dance club burning a hole in her boot. Her skirt is just this side of too short, and for the first time in over a year she isn’t wearing a too-tight wife beater under her shirt as a makeshift bra. The line to the club is long, but her hair is down and makes her stand out just enough to catch the attention of the bouncer who looks her up and down with a smirk, thumbing the obviously false birth date on her ID as he says, “Go on in, lil’ lady. Don’t go making too much trouble in there, ya hear? Would hate to come getchu.”

The club is dimly lit, with throngs of people pulsating along to too loud disco. She forgoes the bar for the dancefloor, throwing herself in to music she can just barely stand all for the thrill of the sensation when rougher hands than her own pull her body against a firm chest.

After dancing for hours, she leaves with the first guy who asks and fucks him in a nearby motel.

(he groans when she pulls a condom out of her panties, smirking with a soft, “For sake keeping.”

“That’s so hot, baby,” he says, lips suddenly at her neck and she grins partly at the feeling, and partly because _fuck you_ , this is winning the game ‘cause he sure as shit wasn’t gonna pull one out if she hadn’t had one.)

No Point Place loser is gonna be telling tall tales about her, and the guys in Kenosha can say whatever the fuck they want.

They don’t even know her name.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps if Hyde had been born a guy, she wouldn’t have tried at school. If she’d been born a guy maybe her mommy issues wouldn’t even have begun to stack up to her daddy issues. If she’d born a guy maybe she’d have been more preoccupied with the abandonment, and the not letting anyone close, the ‘if I never get their hopes up I can never let ‘em down’. But she wasn’t born a guy, she didn’t have that luck.

Suzie Hyde was born a girl, and she grew up looking at her Ma and listening to all the ways she’d screwed up her Ma’s life.

Example A: losing her that spot on the water skiing show.

Example B: not having the good grace to be a boy who Bud woulda stayed for.

Example C: existing.

Thing is, though. You can spend years listening to all the ways you screwed up someone’s life and hear all the things they aren’t saying, all the ways _they_ screwed up their life.

Example A: “I was gorgeous, y’know? My body was perfect, petite, precious. Everyone always said, that Edna. That Edna is going places, she’ll be on the television one day. Don’t need smarts when you’ve got a face like that, that’s what they said. Ha! Now look at me.”

Example A (i): Maybe if I’d gotten my goddamn high school diploma I wouldn’t be stuck serving sloppy joes to kids in the same damn place I couldn't even manage to graduate from.

Perhaps if Hyde had been born a guy, she wouldn’t have tried at school. But as it is, Hyde’s got mommy issues up the wazoo and a determination bone deep to never look in the mirror and see Edna staring back at her. So Hyde rocks up to class (not always on time), and she hands in her homework (always a little crinkled). Hyde sits at the back of the library on cold winter days getting ahead on her readings lists, and proofreading essays on dead guys who did shit that ended up not even mattering. Hyde gets school reports with buzzwords like ‘promising’ and ‘going places’, and not a damn mention of her looks. Not one.

She’s the only one who reads them, but it makes the satisfaction all that sweeter once her friends start talking about college and no one asks her.

 

* * *

 

Here’s a secret: Hyde stole her first pair of shades from a one night stand in Kenosha. They had made her feel small under his gaze. She hadn’t been able to tell when he was looking at her and when wasn’t, had spent the whole night performing for a gaze she couldn’t be sure was wholly fixed on her. Freakin’ Schrodinger’s one night stand. At the motel she’d taken the glasses from his face and placed them on her own, and from that point on the night had been her own once more.

( _Sorry, Doll._ The note she’d left behind had read. _They suit me better._ )

It was summer, so no one had batted an eye at the sudden permanence of the shades and by winter they had become as a part of her make up as the ratty, thrifted concert t-shirts and wild curls spilling down her back.

 

* * *

 

Jack Burkhart’s introduction to the basement is uneventful. Years later Hyde will look back and wonder, huh, how didn’t we know? How didn’t we know he was gonna be so important?

“Guys,” Kelso greets them, the basement door swinging open and cashing into the wall. He cringes, waits half a second in anticipation of Red’s yelling. It doesn’t sound, so he continues. “This is Jack,” and gestures behind him to the guy hovering in the doorway uncertainty painted on the lines of his body. Peering at Hyde, Donna, Eric and Fez sprawled around the television set he brightens, pushing Kelso out of the way.

“Hi! I’m Jack,” he announces, somewhat unnecessarily. “I’m tutoring Kelso in English. And History. Uh, actually also in Math and Science.”

The gang stare at him blankly.

Undeterred, Jack continues. “Kelso invited me over to meet you guys, ‘cause I’ve gotta spend so much time helping him with school and stuff he said it’d be better to meet you all now rather than later!”

Kelso shrugs behind him, and wanders over to the freezer for a popsicle.

“I know who you all are, of course!” Jack says, laughing. “And I know you must know who I am, but Father says that it’s important to introduce oneself to anyone you’re not formally acquainted with… So!” He spreads his hands in front of him as if to say ‘here we go’. He walks over next to the couch, unabashadley taking up space in the way only a man who has never been unwelcome in his life can do.

“Oh, would you look at that,” he says, nodding toward the television set, settling in as if he has a God given right to be there. “Doesn’t she know red is too bold a colour for the lips? Only whores wear red.”

Hyde’s lips, painted bright red, curl into a smirk, “Would ya look at that.”

Jack startles and laughs, shaking his head, “You’re just so lucky you don’t care about what people think of you, Hyde!”

Eric, Donna, and Fez look between the two of them, and even Kelso gawps at Jack's casual assumption of familiarity.

“You’ve got no idea, Doll,” Hyde says, pushing out of her chair. She stretches languorously and fluffs her hair, blowing her haphazard fringe out from in front of her shades. Jack’s eyes wander to her chest, and she grins.

(weeks of hanging around outside the lingerie store had finally paid off. She’d never been in one before so she’d had to case the place out. Shoplifting is both harder and easier when it come to intimates, it turns out.)

“So nice to have become _formally acquainted_ with you, Jackie boy,” she simpers, sliding between him and Fez to reach the basement door. “Good luck with Kelso.”

And with that she’s out of the door.

“Wow,” says Jack, watching after her. “She’s just like they say.”

Eric bristles immediately, “And what, perchance, do they say?”

Jack shrugs, his Varsity jacket rustling with his movement. Eric glances at Donna briefly before glaring up at Jack again, “Huh? What do they say?”

Donna sighs, moving away from Eric to lean against the arm of the couch.

“Nothing, dude. Just, y’know…. She’s something else,” Jack says, uncomfortably.

“Ha!” Kelso exclaims, and chucks his popsicle stick at Fez who wails as it lands in his hair. “You don’t even _know_ , man! Last week Hyde fit sixty seven milk duds in her mouth at once.” Kelso grinned dopily at the memory, “If she wasn’t so scary she’d be like… the perfect woman.”

Fez nods, “She is a goddess! But one who can make a man cry with the twist of a finger, I fear.”

Eric laughed as Donna sighed loudly.

“Oh, do not worry, Donna,” Fez says sympathetically, reaching across Eric to pat her thigh. She smiled at him. “Though you will never be as beautiful, or as scary, your jugs are at least two cup sizes bigger!”

Donna shoved his hand off of her in disgust as the boys laughed.

 

* * *

 

A couple of months pass and Jack is still hanging around the basement ostensibly tutoring Kelso in almost every subject he’s required to pass to graduate sometime within the next decade. The gang minus Donna are in the basement after school, and Jack has some textbooks with him, it’s true, but they’re all watching The Price is Right.

Donna walks in with a trash bag slung over her shoulder which she chucks at Hyde who, with an unlit cigarette dangling from her lip, chucks a lazy salute in her direction in thanks. Jack coughs unsubtly in Hyde’s direction as he has been intermittently since the cigarette took its place between her lips, irregardless of its unlit status. Hyde ignores him as usual.

“What’s in the bag?” Jack asks after less than a minute of awkward fidgeting and less than surreptitious glances. Donna perches on the arm of the couch.

“Stuff,” says Hyde. She moves the cigarette behind her ear.

“Oh,” says Jack. He turns back to the television.

“What kind of stuff?” he asks, drumming his fingers on his thigh. Hyde rolls her eyes and crosses her ankles in front of her, flipping the bird at Fez as he lets out a happy sigh as her skirt slides slightly further up her thigh at the movement. She doesn’t answer Jack.

The lady on the television spins the wheel, as it spins Jack sighs loudly. Hyde’s fingers twitch.

Jack sighs again.

“For God’s sake!” Donna shouts, shoving at his shoulder.

“Jesus, woman!” Jack whines, rubbing at where she’d hit him. “You’ve got mallets for hands!”

Donna rolls her eyes, “It’s just clothes, okay?”

“What?” says Jack, confused. He looks at the bag, still holding his shoulder. “Oh, are you donating them? To the unfortunate?”

“ _Less_ fortunate,” Donna corrects, although her eyes dart to Hyde nervously as she bites her lip.

Eric coughs, “We’re trying to watch this you know?”

“ _Bums_ ,” Jack says, shrugging. “Whatever. Are you donating them?” he asks, looking at Hyde.

She laughs, “Yeah.”

Eric and Donna are stiff, eyes fixed on the television set. Jack beams at her, pearly white teeth and all, “That’s so good of you, Hyde! You kno—”

Hyde interrupts him, smirk curling at the corner of her mouth dangerously, “To me.”

Silence, thick and uncomfortable blankets the room punctured only by the sounds of the game show still playing on the television set. Jack shifts uncomfortably, eyes darting between Donna, the bag, and Hyde.

“Oh,” he says, at length.

“Oh man,” says Kelso, giggling. “This is so awkward.”

“Shut up!” shout Donna, Eric and Jack in unison, glaring at him. Kelso pouts. They go back to watching the television.

“I, uh,” Jack starts.

“Whatever,” says Hyde. Messing with him was fun, but she was bored with it now. Screwing over little rich boys was funny, but if he apologised he might start to _cry_ or something and then she’d have to punch him in his stupid face. His daddy was a lawyer, she didn’t need that crap.

“Look,” Jack starts again, steamrolling past Hyde’s obvious disinterest in the continuance of this particular conversation. “I’m sorry, Suzie,” he says a little pathetically.

Hyde fights the urge to ask what for, knows that the squirming as he tried to come up with an inoffensive way to say ‘that you’re poor and I made it obvious when apparently we’re all meant to pretend it isn’t true’ wouldn’t be worth it. The tension had increased tenfold at his use of her first name, and she let the silence sit heavy for a moment past acceptability.

“That’s cool,” she says finally.

 

* * *

 

Hyde hates prom. Prom, and the Snowball Dance, and Easter Bunny Parade Disco, and Halloween Hokey Pokey, and any other asinine dances the school threw in an attempt to foster inter-student connectivity or whatever the fuck their reasonings were behind the hundreds of fucking dances they insisted on throwing each year. She’d never been to one. Mostly because she didn’t want to go, thanks very much. She got asked every time. By jocks, and nerds, and the stoners she sold pot to behind the bleachers after third period on Thursday’s.

Fuck, if she really wanted to go she’d have bullied Forman into taking her years ago.

No, she hadn’t been to one because she didn’t want to go.

But apparently she was the only chick at the school who felt that way, if Jack was anything to go by.

“It’s just such a, a… It’s a dog act, you know?” He complained, head dramatically thrown back on the couch, arm covering his eyes. “I don’t get how Kelso could just totally steal my date out from under me!”

Hyde snickered, “Probably by getting her under him.”

Jack glared at her, “Not helping, Hyde!”

Jack had been complaining about the Pam Macy, Kelso, Prom situation for what felt like hours. Yeah, the same episode of Donahue was still on so it probably hadn’t been longer than ten minutes or so, but it _felt_ like it had been hours. Probably because any time spent one on one with Jack Burkhart was like subjecting yourself to Chinese water torture. Constant, unrelenting, inescapable.

“Every single chick has a date! I can’t go stag,” he moaned. “Only total losers like Fez go stag, it’s social suicide! I’d be laughed off the team.”

“Sucks,” said Hyde, head cocked to the side as she tried to figure out what was happening on the television. It was a dim scene, and her shades were making it difficult to make out.

“It more than _sucks_ , Hyde!” Jack exclaimed, leaning forward to place his head in his hands. “It’s the worst thing that has ever happened to me!”

“Right,” agreed Hyde, side eyeing him.

Silence reigned for a full blessed five minutes. Jack sighed.

Silence again.

Jack sighed.

Hyde closed her eyes. Breathed in. One, two. Breathed out.

Jack sighed.

“I will fucking hurt you,” Hyde snapped, kicking the coffee table in front of her for effect. Jack pouted.

“Look, just don’t go,” she offered. Jack’s face fell, and he curled into the corner of the couch as if she had suggested he castrate himself. “Loads of people don’t go to Prom, it’s no big deal.”

“Who?” cried Jack mournfully, face buried into the armrest. Hyde often wondered just who she’d offended in her last life. Edna and Bud sucked, sure, but she didn’t goddamn deserve friends as idiotic and over dramatic as all this.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she muttered sarcastically.

Jack jumped up and pointed at her, “You!”

“Wait, no,” she said hurriedly, realising too late her strategic mistake. “Don’t even think about it, Doll.”

“But, Hyde!” Jack said excitedly, pacing in front of her. “It’s perfect! You never say yes to anyone! You made Don Readly _cry_ last week when he asked if you wanted to go with him.”

Hyde nodded, “I can make you cry too.”

Jack was suddenly on one knee in front of her, eyes wide and pleading, “Hyyyyyyde.” He blinked long and slow from under his ridiculous fringe. “I’ll buy your dress! And a corsage! You can drive my dad’s Lincoln!”

“No— Wait, I can drive?” Hyde said, changing track.

Jack stood again, “Yeah! Whatever you want!”

Hyde squinted up at him from behind her shades and considered it, “I’m not wearing pink.”

“It would really compliment your skin tone,” Jack began. Seeing Hyde’s face harden he hastened to add, “But, of course, any colour would really, so, no pink is fine!”

“And I’m not popping your cherry, so you can let _that_ Prom night fantasy go,” she said.

Jack recoiled, “Ha! You wish.”

Hyde just looked at him.

“... Or not.”

 

* * *

 

Edna leaves.

It’s not unexpected. She doesn’t leave in the middle of the night, bitter last words written on a piece of paper left pinned to the fridge. Her stuff has been leaving the house in bits a pieces, enough so that Hyde had been wondering when the other shoe would drop, and then Hyde walks in to the kitchen on a Friday evening to find her waiting. She’s still drunk, it’s not that different.

“I’m leaving,” she says, a cigarette burning in her hand. She spins the beer bottle she’s been using as an ashtray in her other hand.

“You gonna be back?” Hyde asks, hovering in the doorway. Beer bottles have been thrown before.

“Nope,” Edna says, lips smacking on the hard ‘p’.

“You know I’m not eighteen yet, yeah?” Hyde says. You never know, she might think time has passed a bit quicker than it actually has. Usually goes the other way, losing weeks and thinking that it’s Christmas when it’s nearly Easter. But, hey.

“Yup,” Edna replies, smacking her lips again. She takes a drag of her cigarette.

“Fuckin’ awesome,” Hyde nods. “Really great. Where am I meant to go then, or you want me to take over the rent? How is Billy?”

Edna rolls her eyes, “Dear God, I don’t know where you get your goddamn dramatics from.”

Hyde doesn’t bother responding to that.

“Not like you’re ever here anyway, Suze.”

“What?” Hyde exclaims. “So because I try _not_ to hang out with you and Uncle whoever the fuck it is this week I don’t need a goddamn home?”

The bottle goes flying in her direction. She ducks, but a piece of glass gets her on the cheek anyway. Shaking her head, hair flying, shards of glass come raining down on the floor. The glass in her cheek stings, but pulling it out hurts more. It's embedded deeper than she'd thought. 

Edna, clearly over being nice, stubs the butt of her cigarette on the kitchen table and staggers upright.

“Figure it out,  _Hyde_. I’ve paid rent through next week.”

And like that, she’s gone.

Hyde looks around the kitchen and knows she can’t stay here. Even if she wanted to, she sure as fuck isn’t paying Billy the kind of rent he’d want out of her. No way, no how. Trudging up the stairs, she traces patterns on the bannister and tries to rationalise that she’d always known this day would come. It’s not like she hasn’t talked to Eric about it before, she has. She’s got plans. But they’re half-baked and rely too heavily on the Forman’s being good fucking people.

(Mrs Forman takes one look at her heavily bleeding cheek and hastily packed duffle bag before she’s blinking tears out of her eyes. Ushering Hyde to the kitchen table and yelling at Mr Forman in the living room to grab the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink.

“Oh, honey,” she whispers, holding her face in her palms. “Oh, honey, we should have gotten you out of there years ago.”

“It’s fine, Mrs Forman,” Hyde says, smiling. “Really, Mrs Forman. I’ve had worse.”

That was the wrong thing to say, and Mrs Forman bursts into tears immediately. Mr Forman storms into the room, first aid kit in hand. He takes one look at the scene and his face folds in on itself, rage colouring his features.

“I’m going to kill that woman,” he growls, stalking over to the two of them at the kitchen table. “What she do, take a knife to your face?”

Eric is by the sink looking terrified.

“No, honestly,” Hyde says, eyes darting between the two adults nervously. “This is really nothing, I just didn’t duck the bottle quick enough.”

The _this time_ goes unsaid, but echoes loudly nonetheless.

“I’m calling the cops,” Mr Forman says, turning toward the telephone.

“She’s gone,” Hyde interjects, hissing as Mrs Forman applies antiseptic to the cut on her cheek. “That’s why… that’s why she threw the bottle. I, well. I said some stuff ‘cause she said she was leaving, for good this time. Not coming back.”

She meets Eric’s wide eyes. He swallows. Mr Forman just looks at her.

“You can stay here,” Eric says. He’s still shaking, has been since she’d torn into the basement with her hair all wild, blood streaming down her face and cursing the sky blue and the ocean wet.

Mrs Forman says nothing, but her grip on Hyde’s chin tightens a little and blood drips down her wrist and onto the kitchen floor. Mr Forman continues looking at her.

“You can stay here,” Eric repeats, stronger this time as if he’s daring his dad to contradict him. His jaw is clenched, and Hyde feels like if Mr Forman says no Eric will be walking out of here with her. It’s frightening, but it’s also maybe the best thing she’s ever felt.

“Of course you can,” Mr Forman says gruffly. “You’ve always had a home here, Suzie.”

Mrs Forman sniffles before enveloping her in a hug which Hyde returns for a moment before she realises she must be covering the other woman in her blood and attempts to break free.

“Oh, Mrs Forman, I must be getting you covered!” she exclaims, voice shaky with emotion. She catches sight of the puddle of blood on the floor, and blinks back unexpected tears. "I've made such a mess."

Mrs Forman laughs, and strokes her cheek.

“Oh, honey, when will you learn we don’t mind when it’s you, dear.”

The Forman's are good fucking people, too good for the likes of her but she needs their help too much to ever say no and she loves them too much to ever want to.)  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is total stream of consciousness stuff. i have my dissertation proposal due in three days but all i've been able to think about is genderbent hyde???? so this is a couple of hours worth of shite completely not proofread. sorry not sorry. i ummed and ahhed about the jackie genderbend tbh but i also didn't have the time to go far enough into the series to explore jackie/fem!hyde so i took the cowards route and made her male.


	2. he ain't heavy he's my brother

The first time Eric Forman meets Suzie Hyde he thinks she might be an angel. Giveback and Destroy had tried their usual ploy with his brand new G.I. Joe which — no, okay? It was a collectible. His dad had grumbled enough as was, if he’d gone home with it broken after just getting it yesterday he’d have been toast.

So he’d tried standing up to them which went… about as well as expected.

He hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, alright? His mom swore it coming up soon though, he was just a late bloomer. Really. (Hopefully).

Cut to Eric sprawled across the tarmac of the middle school playground, clutching at his head where his very own G.I. Joe had been used as a miniature battering ram and squinting through (manly, very manly) tears up at his tormentors. Out of nowhere a blur of curls and rough cut denim barrels into Giveback, knocking down Destroy on the way.

He blinks, and she’s standing over him.

Look, he knows who Suzie Hyde is. They’ve been in the same classes since Kindergarten, and even if they hadn’t it’s a small town. He’d have known who she was just by the way his mom tuts and clutches at his hand a little bit tighter in the Piggly Wiggly (“ _Mom!_ I’m ten! I don’t need to hold your hand!”), shaking her head and whispering none too quietly to his dad, “Oh, would you just look at that Edna. She’s plainly sauced, Red! It’s 9am, and on the Lord’s day of rest too. That poor girl, she just looks so embarrassed… No, I will not mind my own business, Red Forman! Where would our great country be if we went about minding our own business, huh? Huh, Re— not Vietnam? Oh, we are going to fight today…”

The point is, he knows Suzie Hyde is no angel. Not unless God is a drunk, but he thinks they would have mentioned that in church. But standing above him her curls wild and illuminated by the afternoon sun with his G.I. Joe miraculously unharmed where it’s stuffed in her front pocket and Giveback and Destroy sobbing quietly behind her as she cocks an eyebrow at him with her hands on her hips… she sure looks like one.

“You okay?” she asks as he continues to stare up at her wordlessly. She’s all scuffed up with mud, having landed with Giveback and Destroy in a puddle, but she doesn’t seem to mind like most of the girls in their class would. “I heard you say in Show and Tell that this doll was new,” she plucks it out of her pocket, gives it a little wave. “Didn’t want Destroy, y’know, destroying it. It’s pretty cool when it’s… not destroyed.”

Eric keeps staring.

“... Right,” Suzie says, giving him a strange look. “I’ll just give you this then.”

She chucks the action figure at him. It bounces off his chest and onto the gravel. Giveback and Destroy continue their sobbing behind her; Giveback is clutching at his nose, but Destroy appears to have landed with mud in his eyes he can’t seem to clear.

“Uh, happy birthday, I guess,” she mumbles somewhat awkwardly, and as she turns to walk away she hunches in on herself.

Eric scrambles to his feet, “Wait! Wait, how did you know it was my birthday? I didn’t say that in Show and Tell!” _On purpose_ , he thinks.

“Everyone was talking about your party at morning break,” Suzie says, rubbing at her cheek with a muddy hand. “Heard the cake was good.”

And, well. Doesn’t that just make him feel like a D. U. M. B. A. S. S. as his dad would say? Because, here’s the thing: you don’t invite Suzie Hyde to your birthday party. If there’s a rulebook for Point Place Middle School, that’s number one.

(Number one is actually: Violence of all kinds will not be tolerated on school premises.)

Inviting Suzie Hyde to  _your_ birthday party means you won’t be invited to anyone else’s. She’s poor, you see. Her clothes never fit right, and she doesn’t always have enough money for the school lunch even when her mom is working the canteen. One time she’d brought a sandwich and it had had mould on it. She’s poor, she has no friends, and her mom is Gross Edna. There’s the bottom of the school hierarchy, a sharp drop, and then there’s Suzie Hyde.

But Eric had always thought he’d done a good job of hiding the fact that he wasn’t inviting her to his birthday parties. Yeah, maybe she was suspicious of the fact that she had never been invited to _any_ birthday parties but… Look, he puts in a lot of effort to make sure she doesn’t know he’s excluding her. You see, every year he goes door to door and puts everyone’s invites in their mailbox instead of handing them out in class like everybody else does.

He doesn’t want to never go to a birthday party again, but also Suzie sometimes looks so _s_ _ad_ as everyone sits with their invitations on their desks and she sits without one.

“Oh! Yeah, I didn’t see you there?” he stutters, eyes darting from the muddy stain on her cheek to the bottom of her jeans which are a good inch too far up her leg.

“You didn’t invite me,” she says flatly, her body still angled away from him like a bird poised for flight.

Eric chuckles nervously, “That… would explain it.”

“Okay, Foreskin,” Suzie says, her demeanor quickly turning disinterested as she shoves her hands nonchalantly into her back pockets. She faces him squarely again, and despite her affected nonchalance a stiffness sits about her shoulders. “I don’t care about your stupid birthday party, don’t go getting all girly on me. I don’t freaking care about _birthday parties._ But I saw that doll in the catalogue the other day, it’s like six bucks.”

“Uhuh,” Eric says, nodding slightly too enthusiastically. It’s a lot easier to believe that Suzie doesn’t care about birthday parties, even when she’s sitting and looking sad surrounded by birthday invites none of which are addressed to her, when you’re “Yeah, thanks for saving it.”

“Dude,” Suzie scoffs. “I didn’t just save _it_ , I’m pretty sure I saved your girly ass too.”

Before Eric can come up with a suitably pithy (Read: awestruck. She said ass!) response, a teacher stumbles upon them and, unfortunately, the still sobbing forms of Giveback and Destroy.

* * *

Later that night they’re sitting across from each other at his dining table. His dad has absconded to the living room to watch a Packer’s game and Laurie is needling at him for details on just how he and his ‘new girlfriend.. Oh wait, there’s no way you have a girlfriend! Even one as scraggly looking as that’ met.

“Oh, I know!” Laurie exclaims, her fork idly dragging through her mashed potatoes. “She found you crying in a stairwell after some real boys pushed you around and then she defended your honour!”

“ _Laurie_ ,” his mom says warningly, laughing loudly as awkward silence takes over the table.

Laurie grins wickedly at him, scenting the blood in the water.

Suzie has, up til now, been silent other than thanking his mom for the meal repeatedly any time anyone tries to draw her into conversation.

“You’re kinda right,” she says, and Eric braces himself for the humiliation that is sure to follow. Laurie will never let him live this down. “Except, Eric was giving me a hand. I was fighting these two guys on the playground after class ‘cause they said my Ma is gross,” which, Eric thinks, if she actually fought everyone who said that she’d never sleep. “And Eric totally broke one of theirs nose.”

As lies go, it’s pretty awful.

“ _Eric_ broke someone’s nose,” Laurie says, nose scrunched up in disbelief. “No way. You I could buy — you look kinda scrappy, but baby Eric over here couldn’t break a glowstick.” She pauses, cocking her head to the side and smirking at Eric, “He’s tried.”

Suzie’s plate is cleared, her cutlery politely lined up. She’s still wearing his tee and sweatpants and her hair has frizzed up as it’s dried, but opposite Laurie who’s perfectly made up in her cheerleading outfit but slouching and sneering at them Suzie kinda looks like she’s meant to be there. “Then why’d he get suspended, huh?” she asks, and she’s glaring at Laurie just a tad, but the effect is somewhat ruined by the anxious glances she keeps throwing at his mom.

His mom just smiles at her.

“Eric got suspended?” Laurie exclaims gleefully. “Oh my god! Does Daddy know? I’m _so_ gonna tell Daddy!” She jumps up from the table and bolts for the door.

“Your father knows, Laurie,” his mom sighs, and Laurie stops in her tracks her hand on the door.

“Oh,” Laurie pouts, disappointed. “Well, I suppose I’ll just go and remind him!”

She runs from the room, cheerleading skirt almost definitely a couple of inches shorter than regulation flouncing up as she moves.

“I’ll grab you another plate,” his mom states, grabbing Suzie’s plate and cutlery.

“Oh, no, Mrs Forman,” Suzie stutters, hands fluttering anxiously above the place her plate had just before sat. “I’ve already had seconds, really, I’m super full!”

His mom pays no mind, humming under her breath as she walks out of the room. From the living room, the faint sounds of Laurie gleefully expounding on Eric’s many faults can be heard.

“You know,” Eric says, as Suzie stares somewhat overwhelmed after his mom. “We never eat in here, the dining room is for _important_ guests only.

“Let me know when they arrive, I’ll get out of your hair,” Suzie deadpans, but then she fidgets uncertainly. She whispers, eyes wide: “It’s rude to have thirds.”

“Huh?” Eric mumbles, mouth full with mashed potato.

“It’s rude to have thirds,” Suzie says, louder this time but with eyes no less wide.

Eric watches her carefully, and suddenly she looks like she might cry which is… unsettling. Even when she’s left out of, well, _everything_ at school she doesn’t cry. Yeah, she looks sad but she also looks a little bit pissed off which kind of balances it all out.

“I’m pretty sure my mom would think it’s rude if you didn’t have thirds,” he says, his words stumbling into one another as he rushes to say something, anything, reassuring that isn’t ‘oh god, please don’t cry’.

Suzie’s already bright eyes turn panicked, “But it’s rude to have thirds! You only have thirds if you’re poor and need charity, and this isn’t my house or my food. I shouldn’t be gobbling it all up without any way to pay for it!”

Her words have the slight intonation of repetition, kind of like how everyone sounds at church when parroting the sermons Pastor Dan gives.

“Okay! Okay, then don’t eat the food,” Eric says, holding his hands out placatingly. He pats the empty air in front of him as if to pat her shoulder. Suzie looks even more distressed, shrinking into her seat further.

“I can’t not eat the food I’m given, Eric!” she hisses, distraught and blinking rapidly. “That’s rude!”

“Everything’s rude!” Eric yelps.

At this Suzie rubs at her eyes, and Eric’s eyes widen at the sure fire sign that tears are brewing.

The door from the living room opens, and his mom enters holding a full plate for Suzie. Eric’s eyes dart between the two of them, and he bolts over to his mom.

“Oh, hey, mom,” he says, a false grin plastered across his face as he grabs for the food. “Let me help you with tha—”

The plate falls to the ground. Suzie lets out a loud squeak.

“Eric!” his mom scolds. The food covers the carpet between them, and at the table Suzie is watching, her eyes darting between them.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs Forman!” she yelps, still hunched in her chair but her right arm outstretched as if she may have somehow been able to save the doomed plate.

His mom looks up from inspecting the carpet, now a dull brown colour from the gravy, confused, “Oh, honey, you didn’t do anything!”

Suzie now also looks confused.

Eric certainly _feels_ confused.

“That was the last of the leftovers, though,” his mom frets, wringing her hands in front of her. “Eric, why don’t you take Suzie here down to the basement and you can grab some popsicles for you both.”

Eric nods, and skirting around the mess he’d made on the floor grabs at Suzie’s still outstretched hand. Her fingers tremble in his and he frowns slightly at the sensation, “Come on, Suzie. I think we have fudgsicles.”

She nods jerkily and stands. As they walk past his mom, now kneeling on the carpet and scraping up bits of mashed potato from the ground she whispers another apology. He drags her through the living room, ignoring Laurie’s mean spirited jeers about his little girlfriend, and down into the basement.

“So, this is the basement!” he says, throwing his arms wide to encapsulate the entire room in his pronouncement. Suzie is stood on the bottom step, arms around herself. She looks tiny, he thinks, even though really she’s a bit bigger than him.

(He really hopes his growth spurt comes soon. All of the girls in his class are bigger than him. Some of the ones in the grade below too.)

“It’s got a television, though it’s just black and white ‘cause we’re not uh…” he trails off awkwardly as he remembers who he’s talking to before he shakes himself and continues. If you’re in a hole, you just keep digging til you get out, right? “Rich or anything.”

He forces a laugh. Suzie nods absently.

“Do you want a fudgsicle?” he asks, moving over to the deep freeze.

“No,” Suzie says faintly. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” he presses, opening the lid and rooting around inside. “They’re not from the store, my mom made them. They’re really good!” He emerges victorious, two fudgsicles clutched in his hand and brandishes them at her. He lets the lid fall shut, and Suzie jumps slightly at the noise.

Eric hesitates, fudgsicles still held out between them.

“Are you okay?” he asks, retracting his outstretched arm and setting the fudgsicles on the deep freeze. “You seem… not okay.”

Suzie bites at her lower lip, and seems to hug herself a little tighter.

Eric waits.

“Are you going to get in trouble?” she finally asks, with her head bowed.

“What for?” Eric asks, leaning himself against the deep freeze and watching her with concern and a healthy dose of perplexity.

“For making your Ma drop that plate of food!” Suzie exclaims, finally meeting his eyes. She tucks her hair behind her ears, with at least half of the unruly curls immediately escaping again. “A whole plate of food! And you made such a mess!”

“Oh,” Eric says, and waves a hand absently. “That’s fine. I’ll probably have to take out the trash every night for a week when my dad hears about it, but if it wasn’t this it would have been something else,” he pauses. “I should really just ask to have it added to my chore list.”

Suzie’s mouth is a little agape as he says this, “But… you made all that mess?” Her voice is slightly questioning, and Eric really doesn’t understand what all this fuss is about. Yeah, he made a mess. So what?

“Yeah, so what?” he says. “It’s not like they know I did it on purpose.”

“You did that on purpose?” Suzie shrieks, and Eric blinks in shock. That’s the loudest she’s been since his mom came to pick him up from the Principal's office, taken one look at Suzie and her mud covered clothes, and ushered her along with them.

“Yeah,” Eric drawls out slowly. “You didn’t want to be rude,” he says, and the ‘ _Duh!_ ’ hangs silently in the room.

Suzie’s eyes are wide as she stares at him in shock.

“Oh my god,” she whispers to herself. “Oh my god.”

Eric frowns, “Look, I really don’t see what the big deal is here. I’m gonna take the trash out for a week. You weren’t rude.” _Not,_ he thinks, _t_ _hat you were gonna be anyway._  “Our fudgsicles are melting.”

“Fudgsicles?” Suzie repeats, faintly.

“Dude,” Eric sighs heavily. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?”

He holds her fudgsicle back out to her again. Suzie finally steps fully into the basement, and takes the fudgsicle from him. Eric mimes a cheer, and vaults himself up to and over the couch. Suzie shuffles behind him and awkwardly settles herself on the rickety chair his mom usually uses to settle the laundry basket on as she unloads the machine.

Eric throws his legs onto the coffee table and munches into his fudgsicle, chucking a super ball at the television set and hitting the ‘on’ button first try. Suzie watches silently.

“So,” Eric says, as _Starsky and Hutch_ bursts into life on the screen. Usually he’d be enraptured, but usually he doesn’t have a _girl_ in his basement even if that girl is Suzie Hyde. Who had totally saved his life earlier in the day.

Man, Suzie Hyde is actually kinda cool.

“So,” he repeats. “What did you think of Mikey’s— Mikey Kelso’s —new Batman shirt?”

(His dad comes down to take Suzie home just as _Starsky and Hutch_ comes to an end, and Eric’s surprised to find he’s actually a little bit sad to see her go. It turned out she was _super_ cool. She totally knew, like, every curse word there was even if she’d only whisper them in his ear so his parents wouldn’t hear — even though they weren’t even in the room. And she’d agreed that Superman was better than Batman! (“Rich isn’t a superpower, Forman. What’s Batman gonna do if there’s a line at the bank?”)

* * *

The next day he waves hello in the morning, a gesture she doesn’t return. He tries not to be hurt by it, he guesses if she had waved at him yesterday he would’ve pretended not to see too so he soldiers on. When he sits across from her at lunch she looks at him like he’s mad, and he can see Donna at their usual table looking at him the same way.

“Forman,” she hisses, and tugs her lunch tray closer to her on the table. He thinks it’s a little bit weird that just yesterday he knew but didn’t care that Suzie Hyde didn’t always have lunch, but today he’s more than a little relieved to see a full tray sat in front of her. Maybe it’s because she ate two whole serves at dinner last night and she wasn’t scared of thirds because she couldn’t eat anymore, but because… well, he hasn’t quite figured that much out yet. Anyway, it’s strange how knowing Suzie doesn’t have enough to eat at school had never really translated to Suzie doesn’t have enough to eat period before last night. “What the hell are you doing, you dillhole?”

Her hair is tied back today, and he thinks maybe he liked it better when it was down even if it was a bit frizzy.

“Sitting,” he answers, sticking a forkful of mystery meat in his mouth. Tastes like… a mystery, to be sure. “Eating,” he says, mouth still full. “Hey, do you think you could ask your mom what the mystery meat is? I can never tell.”

The cafeteria seems quieter than usual, and when he glances up more than a few of their classmates are watching them. He swallows nervously, and steels himself not to run away from the table and beg for mercy for daring to speak to Suzie Hyde.

“I can see that,” she says slowly, and pokes his hand where it rests next to his own tray sharply with her fork. “I just don’t get _why_ you’re sitting and eating here. We’re not friends.”

“Ah,” Eric says, and rubs absently at the mark left behind by her fork. “But, you see, I really want to know what the mystery meat is and you have connections.”

Suzie’s lips twitch as if she’s fighting a smile.

“Also, like, you may have noticed that I am not the strongest of guys. I need a bodyguard,” Suzie grabs her fork again. Eric hurriedly adds, “And you just happen to be completely _terrifying_ , oh my god, stop brandishing that fork at me!”

Donna sets her tray down next to him and sits down. Suzie looks between them, her face broadcasting bewilderment at this turn of events.

“Hey, Eric,” Donna greets, and nods a little coolly at Suzie. Suzie’s features smooth out into indifference and she rolls her eyes. “You didn’t tell me we were sitting here today.”

“Sorry, man,” Eric says, shrugging. “I wasn’t sure if you knew Suzie.”

“We’ve been in the same class for, like, three years,” Donna says, eyebrows raised.

“He means,” Suzie interjects, looking bored as Eric nervously takes a sip of his juice box. “That he didn’t think you’d want to be seen sitting with me.”

Eric splutters, juice dribbling down his chin, “No!”

He wipes the juice from his chin, and looks down at his damp t-shirt in dismay. “Oh man,” he mutters, and dabs ineffectively at his chest. When he looks back up, both Donna and Suzie are watching him steadily.

“Okay,” he admits. “That _is_ why I didn’t tell you, Donna.”

Donna opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by Mikey diving down onto the seat next to Suzie who now looks completely overwhelmed once more. She makes eye contact with Eric who shrugs sheepishly.

“Hey guys,” Mikey grins at them all, tearing into his juice box. “What’d I miss?”

“Well, we’re sitting with _Suzie Hyde_ , now,” Donna says acidly, before taking a bite of her very own mystery meat.

“Oh,” says Mikey, as if he’d only just noticed who was sitting next to. “Hey, Suzie!”

And like that, Suzie Hyde is part of the gang.

* * *

Here’s the thing about being friends with Suzie Hyde: It’s really freaking hard.

‘Cause when it comes down to it, everyone has something to say about Suzie. Even _Donna_ who read a book last summer on the lasting bonds of female relationships and the many ways ‘female antagonism is a social device perpetrated by males designed to keep women kind enslaved under paternalistic rationality’ drags Eric aside after their first lunch as a group and asks, “Really, Eric? Suzie Hyde? You know she’s been voted ‘Most Likely to be Arrested’ every year since first grade, right?”

Which, yes. He had known that, thanks, Donna.

But, Suzie had helped him when she really didn’t have to. Really shouldn’t have helped him, given how much of a dillhole he’d been over the years.

And if it’s not everyone else talking crap, it’s Suzie smirking at him and saying something that’s just _t_ _his_ side of hurtful.

The first time it happens he walks away, leaves her standing there with her smirk barely clinging to her lips and her brow just slightly furrowed. And he knows, he does, that she didn’t mean it and that she said it just to hurt.

(“I can’t imagine how disappointed your ma and dad must have been when they realised they had two girls. God, it’s not that hard to hit a ball, Foreskin.”

Everyone in the gym had laughed, even the gym teacher.)

What he couldn’t figure out is _why_.

“Oh, honey,” his mom had said, holding his hand across the kitchen table. He had hot cocoa sat in front of him, extra marshmallows bobbing with each breath he used to cool it. “Sometimes it can be scary having people be your friend!”

“How?” he’d asked, brow furrowed as he’d tried to puzzle it out. He thought about Donna and Mikey. Yeah, they were a pain in the ass sometimes, especially Mikey, but not having them around at all would be lonely. “Having friends is, like, the easiest thing in the world!”

“Not if you haven’t really had any before,” his mom had said, patting his hand absently. “Now, I think it’s really sweet that you’ve made friends with Suzie. God knows, I’ll be glad to stop feeling guilty at your birthday parties.”

He’d stared at her, “Wha-aaaat?”

“A mother knows,” she’d chided, patting his hand again. “But I think she’s a little scared that you don’t want to stay friends, so she’s testing you a bit.”

“Testing me?” Eric had repeated, puzzled. None of this conversation had made sense so far.

“I think she wants to know you’re not a fair-weather friend,” his mom said, and laughed gaily. “Not that my little schnicklefritz would ever be that!”

“Okay, now you’re just making things up,” Eric had said, still confused. “What’s a fair-weather friend?”

His mom had smiled softly at him, and stolen a marshmallow from his cocoa. Popping it in her mouth, she’d chewed thoughtfully.

“Suzie just wants to know that you’re not going to stop being friends with her,” she said at length. “She’s scared because she’s never had a friend like you before that you’re going to hurt her by going back to the way things were before.”

“That’s dumb,” Eric had said, taking a gulp of his cocoa before his mom could steal another marshmallow.

“Oh, well,” his mom had said, looking suddenly very upset. “I think it’s very sad.”

The next day he’d sat right back down next to Suzie, and every time after that too until one day he couldn’t remember what it felt like for Suzie not to be right there.

* * *

If there’s one person in the world that Eric Forman despises, it’s Edna Hyde.

The first time Suzie turns up at his bedroom window after midnight, shivering in a shirt that almost definitely used to belong to Kelso at some point with a split lip and red rimmed eyes, Eric swears to himself that he’ll never hate anyone like he hates Edna fucking Hyde.

They top and tail in his tiny single bed, and it’s nowhere near as awkward as he would have imagined.

(“Look, Forman,” Su— Hyde says, dragging her hair into a loose top knot, his feet resting awkwardly on her thighs. “As much as I joke about you not hitting puberty yet, I know the magical fairy of awkward boners and wet dreams has visited. And I’m hot. I don’t want to wake up to you humping me in your sleep, I’d rather just go back home.”

“You’re not going home,” he says instantly, jaw clenched.

She smiles at him gently, and this is it, he thinks. This is what the assholes at school don’t get, and even what Donna and Kelso don’t one hundred percent understand. Yeah, she’s _Suzie Hyde_ but she’s also the person who fought two guys twice her size so that his G.I. Joe didn’t get broken. She’s the girl who, he knows, didn’t get hit for the first time tonight. She’s the girl who turned up at his window and still hesitated to knock, who offered to leave.

“I’m going home tomorrow, Forman,” she says, securing her hair. “Now get your gross, stanky ass feet off me, creep.”)

When the light goes off he lays there, her feet under his pillow and he listens to the sound of her breathing. It’s reassuring.

“You know I love you, right?” he breathes into the darkness, expecting her to use the blanket of darkness as an excuse not to answer in the same way he’d used it to bolster his courage.

“Yeah,” she replies, and her hand briefly clasps around his ankle. “I love you too, you massive _nerd_.”

He laughs, slightly too loud, and they both lay there in silence again.

“You could stay,” he says suddenly, and even as he’s saying it he knows it’s a pipe dream. “You don’t have to go home tomorrow. Laurie’s off to college next year, you could have her room. I’ll exchange one sister for another.”

Her breathing stutters.

“You’re my favourite anyway,” he continues. He’s gone this far, he reckons, why not go the whole hog. This is a philosophy which has only ever gotten him in trouble thus far, but…

“Eric,” she whispers, and his heart clenches a little in his chest at how scared she sounds. Suzie Hyde isn’t meant to sound scared around him. “Eric, I can’t stay.”

He sits up and shuffles around until he’s tailing with her down the bottom of his bed and puts his arms around her, “It fucking sucks.”

She laughs brightly, before sniffling with her head laying on his arm, “I know.”

They stay laying there, and just as Eric begins to fall asleep Suzie says, “I love you, and you’re the brother I never had. But, if you ever tell anybody about this I will cut up your body and bury it in seven different states. I won’t feel the least bit sorry.”

“Gotcha.”

* * *

When he’s fifteen, his dad brings him into the garage and sits him down. He’s scared shitless. Mostly because for the life of him he cannot figure out just what thing it is that his dad has caught the gang out on. It couldn’t be the pot, there would have been a lot more shouting by now.

His dad walks over to the refrigerator as he quietly panics on the seldom used beach chair in the corner.

“Catch, dumbass,” his dad says, and there’s a can of beer hurtling towards his face. He grabs it just in time, and thanks God that he hadn’t fudged it. He figures that if this isn’t some elaborate practical joke, and Red doesn’t snatch it straight back out of his hand as soon as he opens it, that had he dropped it he definitely wouldn’t be allowed to drink it.

His dad settles into the beach chair opposite him, and cracks open his own can. He takes a long drink, and raises an eyebrow at Eric.

“That’s for you,” Red says, nodding at the can Eric’s still holding gingerly.

“Right,” Eric nods. “Because I get beer from you all the time, Dad. This is a downright _normal_ thing for us to be doing together. Shooting the shit, drinking beer…”

“Don’t say ‘shit’,” Red says disapprovingly. “You’re still in high school.”

Eric opens the beer and, eyeing Red suspiciously all the while, takes a tentative sip. Red just watches.

“Yes,” says Eric, tipping the can in Red’s direction. “Profanity? Dear God, no. But beer? Why, of course!”

Red rolls his eyes and takes another drink, “Don’t be a smartass. We need to talk.”

Dread immediately settles in Eric’s stomach once more, and he nervously takes a gulp from his beer.

Silence reigns between the two for several minutes, broken only by the sound of drinking. From his seat, Eric thinks he can occasionally see his mom peeking out of the kitchen window to look at them. It’s either his mom or Laurie, but since she got accepted to college she’s barely been in the house. Thank God.

“It’s about Suzie,” Red finally says, crumpling his empty can in his fist.

“Hyde?” Eric squeaks. Surely if they knew about the nights Hyde sometimes spent in his room they’d have busted them in the act? Not that they do anything more than sleep, God, no. To be honest, Eric thinks he’d rather cut his dick off rather than do anything with Hyde. He _knows_ that Hyde would actually cut his dick off if he ever even thought about it. He has plans for his dick, thanks. Namely: _Hello, Donna!_

“Yes,” says Red. He gets up and grabs another beer. Only for himself this time. He cracks it open and immediately chugs a good amount of it. The realisation slowly dawns on Eric that, perhaps, he has no need to be nervous about this conversation. Not if his dad so blatantly is.

“How is she?” Red asks, scratching at his forehead.

“Uh,” says Eric, confused. “She was here yesterday, Dad. You saw her.”

Red sighs, and looks at him as if he’s an idiot, “Yes. Suzie was here yesterday with a bruise covering over half of her arm, dumbass.”

Eric says nothing, and takes a drink.

The thing is… well. As awful as it is, he’s sorta become accustomed to seeing all manner of bruises on Suzie over the years. He hates it, he does. There’s not a single bruise or scrape; no cut or burn; no sling or cast that he’s seen and not been filled with an overwhelming desire to _run Edna fucking Hyde down with a car_ . And yeah, that bruise had been pretty bad, all deep purples and covering way too much of her skin, further than just her arm, as to be covered in the summertime heat. He just… forgot that seeing Suzie all banged up wasn’t supposed to be _normal_.

“Your mother and I,” Red continues when it becomes clear that Eric isn’t going to say anything. “We’re… concerned about what’s happening with Suzie at home, son.”

“Bit late,” Eric mutters, taking a mutinous swig from his own can of beer.

Red inclines his head, acknowledging the hit, “Your mother would like to know that she’s safe.”

Eric looks at him in disbelief.

“Or,” Red continues. “That nothing has taken a turn for the worse.”

And there’s so much that he could say to that. He could say that, actually, the summertime is a pretty fucking terrible time in the Hyde household. That Edna is out of stable employment because the school is shut, which means she’s making her money in different ways that has strange men wandering the hallways of the dillipated house which doesn’t so much as have a guarantee of hot water or electricity. He could say: how can you know that she’s not safe and not do anything about it? He could say: you’re the adults and I’m the one giving her a place to sleep when her mom is screaming abuse and some strange man is threatening to mess up her pretty goddamn face.

But Hyde wouldn’t thank him for that. It fucking kills him, but he shakes his head and drains his beer. He smiles at his dad and swears that things are just fine, that Hyde took a tumble at the skate park over the weekend.

Because he thinks if he sat his parents down and told them everything he knew, they wouldn’t hesitate. They haven’t done anything because while they know things aren’t great, they don’t _know_. They don’t know that Hyde started wearing lipstick because her mom kept splitting her lip open and the school nurse kept slipping ‘They Can Love You and Hurt You’ pamphlets in her locker. They don’t know that Edna skipped town three months ago for nearly two weeks and the only reason Hyde didn’t go hungry was Eric setting up a rotation system of “Where is Hyde gonna eat tonight” for the gang.

But Hyde doesn’t want them to know that and he can’t break her trust unless it’s truly desperate.

And if it kills him because he’s so _goddamn_ scared that he’s gonna fuck it up and stay quiet too long… well, he’s still got the better end of the deal here, hasn’t he? It won’t _actually_ kill him.

* * *

Hyde starts disappearing near every weekend when they’re fifteen. Donna and Kelso are pretty clueless, but she gets away with it for less than a month before Eric corners her at the bus station on a Saturday night.

“What are you _wearing_?” he asks, shocked. He’s never seen Hyde dressed like this, like a _girl_. Sure, she wears skirts and dresses. He’s even seen her in heels once or twice, when she’s dug out a pair in her size at the Good Sammy’s for less than seventy-five cents. But no matter what she wears there’s something about her, something that says _don’t touch me_. It’s written in the set of her shoulders, the slant of her eyes, and the curve of her lips. Nothing about her says _don’t touch me_ now.

She sighs and throws her arms in the air at the sight of him, “Goddamnit, Forman. Why can’t you keep your nose out of my business?”

“Maybe,” Eric says, stung. “Because you’re sneaking off to _Kenosha_ dressed like, like… like that!”

He gestures wildly at the entirety of her, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m just going dancing,” she says, tugging uncomfortably at a curl which has fallen haphazardly into her face.

“ _Dancing_?” Eric shrieks. The people in the line for the bus are watching them, and a couple of women near the front are whispering at each other. A guy sat on his backpack on the floor leers at Suzie, calls out: “Hey, baby. I can take you for a dance.” Suzie grabs his arm and drags him away from the line, throwing a glare over her shoulder at the gawkers as they go.

“Look, okay,” she starts. “I’m just going out and having a good time. I can’t do it _here_ because, well, there’s nowhere to go in Point Place and—” she cuts herself off looking frustrated and runs a hand through her hair.

“And?” Eric prompts.

“I can’t do it here because as soon as I show the slightest interest in anything not strictly PG rated assholes are gonna start asking me how much I’m charging per ride,” she snorts, and shakes her head. “Okay?”

“No!” Eric exclaims, gesticulating wildly. “Not okay! You’re just running off to the city every weekend without telling any of us where you’re going! Going to shady dance clubs and doing God only knows what with strange men!”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Suzie says angrily, taking a step back from him.

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, you idiot,” Eric shouts. “I’m trying to tell you to _tell me_ what you’re going to do so I know where to send the goddamn cops to look for your body if you don’t show up at school on Monday!”

Suzie rolls her eyes, flipping her hair over her shoulder and tapping her foot impatiently, “I’m not stupid. I’m safe.”

Eric just stares at her wordlessly.

“I am!” she exclaims, defensively. Behind her the bus rolls up, and the line of people begins boarding. Eric purposefully doesn’t draw her attention to it.

“Right,” he scoffs, leaning against the lamp post they’ve been standing under. “Nothing screams ‘safety’ like running off to a strange city, filled with no one you know, and not telling anyone where you’re going. Presumably,” he continues, building up steam. “Presumably with a fake ID so, if you do get brutally murdered, they ID you as the wrong person and us poor schmucks who — oh, I don’t know,  _love and care about you_ never find out just what happened to you after you fucking disappeared.

But yes,” he nods sarcastically. “You’re so fucking _safe_.”

Suzie’s eyes are downcast, and she’s scuffing her right foot against the pavement. Eric kicks a pebble at a foot and she stops.

“You’re gonna scuff those heels,” he says, tone milder. “And I know for a fact you splurged a whole ninety cents on those bad boys.”

“Well,” she says, sending him a subdued grin. “You should know, seeing as how you’re the one who made me buy them.”

“And I was right to!” he says, pointing at them. “They look great!”

He gives her a double thumbs up and the tension between them dissolves.

“Ayyyyyyy!” Suzie drawls, returning the gesture before bursting in peals of laughter.

Eric takes two strides forward and hugs her close and rough. Her laughter trails off, and she hugs him back.

“I love you too goddamn much,” Eric whispers in her ear, tears clouding his vision. “For you to be pulling this kind of shit. You gotta trust me, man, ‘cause otherwise I think you’re gonna end up breaking my heart.”

“I’m sorry,” she replies, and he breathes in the scent of her which has become synonymous with dark nights spent clutching onto something that always feels too ephemeral to stake your heart on, but which he never really stood a chance against, did he? “I didn’t think.”

(It’s Saturday night, and the telephone rings.

“Eric!” calls his mom from upstairs. “It’s for you!”

Donna groans, shuffling through her property cards, “Come on, Eric! This game of Monopoly is lasting too long as it is.”

Kelso looks up from ordering his cash in rainbow order grins, “Nah, man. Go get the phone. Big D and I will just stay here with the bank.”

Eric snatches up the bank, and goes to the stairs, “And I know _exactly_ how much cash I’ve got, so don’t try anything you pair of cheating… cheats!”

As he takes the steps two by two he hears Donna’s sarcastic, “God, what a burn!”

In the kitchen his mom looks quizzically at the monopoly box cum makeshift bank in his hand and points to the phone which has been left off the hook, “It’s Suzie, dear.”

“Hey,” he says into the receiver, and down the staticky line Suzie laughs.

“Right, you big baby. I’m in Kenosha. I am not dead yet and, if I do not die later in the night, I will call you tomorrow at eight.”

“Don’t joke about that,” he grumbles, though mostly lightheartedly. “I’ll be at church at eight, can you call at seven?”

She sighs over the line, sending a loud burst of static into his ear.

“Fine. But only because,” she pauses. “I love you, or something, I guess.”

“God help the man who ends up with you,” Eric teases, although a grin has stretched so wide across his face his cheeks are hurting. “I can hear you at the altar now, ‘I might sort of like you a bit’.”

“Asshole,” she says, but she’s laughing.

The line goes dead to the sound of her laughter, and Eric heads back downstairs to where his money has significantly depleted feeling ten times lighter.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! i have an essay due in like a day and a bit that i've done no research or work on, so what do i do???? i write another 6k for this which is 100% the fault of those of y'all who commented on this because i am a sluuuuuut for attentioooooooon! once again completely unedited, i have work in 4 hours so imma go pass out now :) any formatting errors will probably get cleaned up tomorrow
> 
> (updated 5/09 for aforementioned formatting shit and some other basic editing now that the essay is done and dusted)


	3. i say softly, slowly

They agree on purple for Prom.

“You said no pink, Hyde,” Jack whined, holding a piece of frilly fabric out at her. “This isn’t pink!”

Hyde grimaced and gingerly took the fabric scrap from him between two fingers, “I don’t think this is any better. You sure you shouldn’t be taking a dude to Prom,  _Jackie_?”

Jack rolled his eyes and flounced over to the couch. He threw himself down and, dramatically laying back and throwing an arm haphazardly over his eyes, he exclaimed, “Fine! I guess you just don’t care that lavender is _the_ colour of the season, or that if you turn up looking poor I’m going to look stupid, and unpopular, and, and—” He sat up, leaning back on his elbows to pout at her, “ _Desperate_.”

Hyde raised one eyebrow over her shades unimpressed, the fabric still held out in front of her as if were diseased.

“Jack Burkhart II _is not_ and has never been desperate,” he said, tossing his stupid fringe out of his eyes indignantly.

“Funny,” Hyde drawled. “Seemed pretty desperate when you were almost on your knees begging me to come to this stupid dance with you.”

She balled up the fabric and chucked it at Jack.

“Oh, wait,” she hummed, tapping a finger against her painted lips. “You _were_ on your knees for me, actually.”

“Oh, _wait_ ,” Jack mimicked back at her, his face screwed up as if he had sucked on a lemon. He picked up the fabric scrap from where it had landed on his leg, “You tell anybody about that and I’ll, I’ll…” He trailed off, thinking.

Hyde waited patiently. Burns and blackmail took her friends awhile, but it was okay. She was sure that one day, maybe decades in the future, she’d get them somewhat near her standard. Maybe not Kelso, but only God could help _that_ boy.

“I’ll tell Fez what you said in the circle the other night about him!” Jackie exclaimed triumphantly, brandishing the fabric in her direction once more. “And you kn- _oooow_ ,” he sing-songed, a smug grin plastered across his face. “You know he’d love to show it _all_ off for his curly haired goddess of the basement.”

This was, all things considered, a pretty good blackmail attempt even if it took him a while.

(“Oh, man,” Hyde sighed on the exhale, holding the joint out to Forman. Forman took it and she giggled, just a tad, smacking her lips.

“Man, man, man,” she repeated, scrunching up her face. “That’s such a weird word.”

Donna, sat across from her and staring in awe at her own hands, hummed an acknowledgement: “Totally.”

Forman bypassed Donna and handed the joint right over the centre of the circle and over to Jack who was spooning out pudding straight from the mixing bowl. He took it from Forman, but handed it back over to Hyde who took another hit, lazily sprawled against the legs of the television stand.

“What if,” Donna said, slowly with the tone of one coming to an earth shattering conclusion. “What if my hands aren’t the only body part that are huge?”

Forman opened his mouth and then closed it with a click, thinking better of whatever idiotic thing was clearly about to come out. Hyde squinted across at Donna appraisingly and said, “Like what?” At the same time, Jack snorted and said, “Yeah, like your _ginormous_ boobs.”

Forman nodded, smiling dazedly.

Donna sighed impatiently and lowered her hands from where she’d held them in front of her face for closer inspection, “No, dillholes! Like…” She gasped and clutched at her butt as best she could while still sitting, and glared at Eric who was still staring dreamily at her chest, “What if my butt is totally huge and Eric _lied_ about it when we went to the Vineyard the other week?”

“Huh?” Forman said, eyes still firmly planted on where Donna’s sweater stretched across her boobs.

Jack just laughed and stuck another spoonful of pudding messily into his mouth, “Oh, Donna. Of course he lied!”

Donna’s face began to grow red, her hands still on her ass.

“Ya know who does have a huge butt,” Hyde interjected, and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively while rubbing idly at a rugged cut near her shoulder she’d exposed under the tee. It _itched_. Forman’s attention diverted from Donna’s assets to the abrasion and his eyes narrowed. Hyde paid him no mind. “Fez,” she announced.

Eric reached out to poke lightly at the cut and she batted his hand away easily. Donna huffed, and Eric turned his attention back to her. Hyde tried not to rolls her eyes; instead she took another hit, letting the smoke curl into her lungs and smooth over her ragged edges. _Ha_ , she thought, _if it worked like that…_  

She tapped her fingers against the cut once, and then let her hand fall.

“Yeah,” Hyde sighed, reluctantly exhaling. “Fez has a nice ass. You could bounce a dime off of that thing.”

Eric and Donna gave her a strange look, clueing her onto the fact that maybe she’d said something she wouldn’t have it weren’t for her good pal Mary Jane, while Jack spluttered to her right.

“ _Fez?_ ” Jack cried, his pudding laying forgotten by his side.

“Yup,” Hyde said, nodding decisively. She surreptitiously inched her hand closer to the abandoned pudding.

“The foreign guy,” Jack stated, eyes wide as he stared at her. “You think the foreign guy has a ‘nice ass’?” He finger quoted at Hyde, before turning his wild eyes to Eric and Donna for support. Hyde used the moment to secret the pudding behind her.

“It’s not, like, the best ass in the world or anything,” Hyde said, consideringly while she absentmindedly tugged at a loose curl that had spilled out of the scarf around her head. Three more sprung loose. “But it’s definitely the best ass in the basement. Other than my own, obviously.”

Jack shrieked, gesturing erratically and batting at her leg with light open palmed slaps, “You take that back!”

“No,” Hyde said, and raised her eyebrows at him defiantly. The effect was slightly ruined by her then drawing the pudding out from behind her and, lacking the spoon which remained clenched in Jack’s right hand, used her fingers to scoop it into her mouth.

“You—” Jack stared helplessly at her, his mouth moving wordlessly. He looked again to Eric and Donna for help, but they’d returned once more to some semblance of newly wedded bliss and were holding up their hands to one another for comparison. Giving up on the couple for help he turned back just in time to see Hyde suck some pudding out from the junction between two fingers. He met her eyes and a blush spread across his cheeks. “You are a heathen! An absolute heathen!”

Hyde just grinned.)

“Oh, God,” Hyde groaned, and snatched the fabric back again from Jack’s outstretched hand. “That little fruit wears tight enough pants as is.” She moved to walk past him to her seat, but paused just long enough to lug him on the shoulder. “But if you ever repeat any of the crap Fez says about me again, I’ll make sure there’s _never_ a Jack Burkhart III.”

Jack rubbed at his shoulder petulantly before laying back down. He head hung off the end of the couch so he could watch her as she sat down. Dangling off the couch with too-long limbs sprawled every which way Hyde could admit, in the safety of her own mind at least, that the kid was cute in a puppyish, Macy’s catalogue, kinda way.

“Okay, okay!” he said, fringe flopped vertically toward the ground. Hyde considered that, perhaps, he’d gotten his hair cut in the position. It would explain the non-functionality of the style in pretty much all other situations. Say what you would about Mrs Forman’s abilities as a hairdresser but at least Hyde’s hair remained largely out of her face. “Jeez, Louise. I thought I was threatening you, not the other way around!”

Hyde shrugged.

“Just make sure your makeup doesn’t clash with the dress colour,” Jack said, reaching down to the ground next to the couch to pick up a football. Taking his eyes off of her, finally, he straightened himself out and began tossing the ball into the air repetitively. “That means no red lipstick.”

Hyde huffed and crossed her arms, “Sure thing, Cosmo. Any other requests?”

“Do something nice with your hair. None of that fuzzball crap, definitely no scarves,” Jack said haughtily. Hyde reached over and grabbed the football on its next toss. Standing, she smirked down at him.

“I’ll do my best to make sure I’m _worthy_ of being your date, Burkhart,” she said, emphasising the use of his last name with a disdainful curl to her lip.

“Oh,” Jack said, smiling up at her obliviously. “Well, good then! Because, I mean, it may not seem like it but going as my date is really something you should be quite proud of, all things considered—” Hyde threw the football with some force at his nads. Jack cried out, curling in on himself protectively.

Hyde snatched up the fabric swatch from where she’d left it on her chair and stomped up the stairs to the kitchen. She knew, really, that she’d been going to go to this stupid dance with Jack as soon as he’d started pouting at her last week. As much as she wished, truly and fervently wished, that she was the stone cold bitch half the town thought she was, she wasn’t. She was a soft touch when it came to her friends and… and her friends tutors, apparently. So, yeah, she’d held out until the promise of the Lincoln had been dangled in front of her but honestly that was kinda just luck. She’d still be right here, holding a swatch of fucking _lavender chiffon_ and worrying about eyeshadow and lipgloss even if he hadn’t offered for her to drive his daddy’s car.

Because as much as she’d rather set herself on goddamn fire than rock up to the school gym in a prom dress, she knew that for Jack it really did seem like the end of the world if he turned up stag. It was weird, she thought, that being unpopular meant that no one gave a crap what she did. Hyde not not turning up to Prom each year meant fuck all. Being popular, though, meant that Jack had to bend over backwards to _stay_ popular. Which was, for some reason, important to him.

And so, here she was.

“Hey, Mrs F,” she said, hand still clutching the fabric as she stood uncomfortably at the kitchen doorway.

Maybe Jack had wanted to take the Malibu Barbie (with detachable panties!) otherwise known as Pam Macy, but he was stuck with her.

“Could I ask a favour?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking studiously at the kitchen floor.

And as much as she didn’t have a problem embarrassing herself by turning up to Prom in a fancy dress paired with her boots, red lipstick, riotous curls and a shitty attitude… She didn’t want to do that to Jack. He was an annoying twerp with a superiority complex hand picked and paid for by his daddy, but all in all he was a good kid. It wasn’t his fault he was rich as all hell and knew it too. He deserved to go to Prom with Malibu Barbie and not the beach bum Malibu Barbie gave her spare change to.

“Prom’s next week and I was hoping you’d be able to help me get ready for it.”

* * *

 

She could have asked Donna for help. Donna, at least, wouldn’t have dug out _Laurie’s_ make up.

She’s scared she’s gonna contract some kind of disease from the lipgloss.

But, Donna and Hyde have always had… a weird relationship. They’re friends. They’re definitely friends, and Hyde would almost definitely do illegal things to help her out if she ever asked. It’s not that they’re not friends.

Donna gives her all of the clothes she’s grown out of, or that her parents replace with newer, more fashionable pieces. Donna invited her around for dinner a few times when her Ma was out of town and food was looking a little dicey. Donna threatened to punch a guy who called her a whore, and she thinks that it was maybe only half because Eric was around to see because Donna also iced her hand after _she_ decked the asshole.

It’s just that they’re not exactly best friends.

And, look, Hyde’s not been harbouring daydreams of sleepovers with face masks and boy talk, okay? Get that right outta your head. But she did, maybe, back in the day when friends were the stuff of wishes that she’d dreamed up while blowing out the lighter she’d used as an approximation of a candle on her birthday one year; she did, maybe, once think that having a friend who was a girl would be a lot less goddamn _chilly_ than this.

It’s probably her fault. She knows it is at least fifty percent her fault that she and Donna are friends, but not crazy close friends. Because back in the early days of her joining the gang, she hadn’t been the easiest to get on with. Hell, she still isn’t. She knows her zen keeps people out, and she knows that she gets defensive at all the wrong times. But she also knows that most of the reason her and Donna aren’t as close as they could be? Is Eric.

Not that, like, it’s his fault or anything. Eric would probably throw a goddamn parade if she and Donna started braiding each others hair and gossiping about boys.

Okay, no. Perhaps not gossiping about boys. That would invariably lead to gossiping about Eric, and she knows way too much about him that Donna should never, under any circumstance, know about.

(The time he came in his pants while Donna ate a hotdog when they were thirteen springs to mind)

No, it’s more that Eric belonged to Donna for years before Hyde ever came along and saved his limited edition G.I. Joe from certain doom. Eric and Donna have this epic romance that has spanned from when they were kids playing on Hippity Hops til now and will probably keep going until they’re that one old couple who are just as stupidly in love at ninety as they were at nineteen.

Which is whatever. Hyde doesn’t _want_ Eric. She doesn’t want to break up their epic romance or steal him away from Donna with her nefarious feminine wiles or whatever the fuck it is that Donna’s spent the past five years or so thinking. Or, no. No, she’s not being fair to Donna. She knows she’s not.

Donna knows she doesn’t want Eric, not that way anyway. And now they’re together, she sure as hell hopes that Donna knows Eric doesn’t want her that way either. If not, they shouldn’t be together at all and she can’t think that because she _knows_ that they are. They’re Eric and Donna; everyone in Point Place knows that Eric and Donna are gonna be that one couple from high school that are gonna turn up to the reunion with the perfect family, perfect life, and not a whisper of divorce rumours. That’s just the way it is.

But Eric was Donna’s way before Hyde ever came along with her oh so tragic backstory and her mommy who never loved her. Eric was Donna’s and then Hyde came along and suddenly Eric wasn’t _just_ Donna’s anymore.

Sure, there was Kelso too. Kelso had been around longer than either of them, is in a lot of Eric’s childhood photographs: sprawled in the background, grinning next to Eric with wonky teeth, looking confused at various science fairs. But there’s something about the fact that she’s a girl that had always put Donna’s back up. She thinks maybe it’s because even though Donna knows she doesn’t want Eric, even though they’ve had this talk (just two months after that first meeting in the cafeteria because, fuck this, Hyde isn’t gonna sit around and be treated like crap by _Basement Bob’s_ daughter. Even if it meant not having any friends anymore, no. She gets enough of the catty, petty shit at home. She doesn’t need that anywhere else) _multiple times_ (“...because,” Donna says. “I mean. We were ten.”), she thinks maybe Donna doesn’t quite get why not every chick in Point Place is panting after Eric like she does.

Which is, honestly, probably the reason they’re gonna make it the whole nine yards. Donna honestly doesn’t understand why any woman would look at Forman, scrawny and nerdy as he is, and not immediately want to do it. Like, yeah, Forman’s a great guy. Genuinely the best guy she knows, and she loves him. Like, actually loves him. Which is terrifying, and horrible, and sometimes she kinda wishes she hadn’t saved his G.I. Joe that one time because loving people is _awful_. But she also knows that if she didn’t have Eric she wouldn’t have anyone; and not having anyone would be fine, but the thought of not having Eric feels like getting punched repeatedly in the chest.

So, yeah. She loves Eric. That ship sailed years back when he had taken one look at her busted cheek and hugged her real quick and tight, ignoring her indignant punches to his side, and presented her at lunch with his pudding because he didn’t know any other way to make her smile. It’s impossible not to love Eric because she looks at him and knows that her Ma was wrong. Maybe some men aren’t nice to little girls, but not all of them. Yeah, Eric’s more of a boy than a man. And, sure, it’s been a while since anybody looked at her and saw a little girl. But he’ll be a man one day. He’ll be a man one day, and he’ll be a man that little girls like who she used to be would be safe around.

She loves Eric, but she’s not _in love_ with the guy.

At the same time, she gets it. If she’d had Eric all to herself for years; if she’d been the only chick he cared about other than his Mom then yeah, maybe she’d be a bit defensive of the town’s charity case swooping in on him too.

The whole thing is just a complicated mess. She cares about Donna, and she knows Donna cares about her too. But Donna resents her for… needing Eric, she guesses. Because she does need Eric, in a way that makes her skin crawl each time she rocks up at his bedroom window for a place to stay; or when he unpacks his lunch and hands her an extra sandwich just as she’s gearing up to make an excuse for why no, she’s really not hungry today; or like that time she opened her locker to find a fully stocked first aid kit waiting for her. And she doesn’t know how to explain to Donna that she doesn’t _want_ to need Eric in the ways she does. That she’d give anything not to need him sitting by her side, handing her bite sized pieces of safety.

And so she resents Donna for resenting her for needing Eric who resents the fact that they resent each other.

It’s just resentment layered on top of friendship layered on top of the fear that one day Eric’s gonna choose between them for some reason or another.

So, uh, she goes to Mrs Forman.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, oh, oh!” Mrs Forman squealed, her hands clasped in front of her as she bounced on the balls of her feet. Her skirt bounced around her calves at the movement, but her hair remained completely stationary. Before tonight Hyde had always wondered just how it was she made her hair so immovable, but now she knows. Her lungs may never recover.

“You just look so wonderful,” Mrs Forman said, wiping at her eyes. “So wonderful!”

They were stood in the living room with Red doing his best to ignore them from his arm chair. Hyde couldn’t blame him, she was also trying her best to ignore them and she was part of the ‘them’.

“Oh, Red,” Mrs Forman exclaimed, grabbing Hyde’s arm to spin her around to face him. He turned the page of his newspaper, not even glancing upward. “Doesn’t she look wonderful, Red?”

“Yes,” Red said, still not looking.

Hyde bit at her lip before remembering the carefully applied lipgloss. She hastily let go again.

“Red,” Mrs Forman said again, her tone dipping significantly.

Red sighed, and set down his newspaper on his lap.

“Oh, well,” he said, finally looking at her. Mrs Forman stood to her side, her arms splayed like a game show presenter. A grin slowly made its way onto Red's face, “Now would you look at that!”

“Doesn’t she look wonderful, Red!” Mrs Forman repeated, and taking her hand made her twirl around for him.

Red smiled at the two of them, “You look great, Suzie.”

“Oh,” said Hyde, smoothing her hands down the front of the dress that Jack had dropped off to the basement three days ago. It looked and felt expensive, and she couldn’t decide if she liked that or not. Either way it made her feel anxious. “Thank you, Red.”

“Eric!” Red shouted. “Eric get down here and look at your— take a look at Suzie!”

Mrs Forman fussed at her side over her hair, tucking curls here and there. Eric began clomping down the stairs noisily, “God, Dad. I’m going to see her there in a couple of hou— holy _shit_ , Hyde!”

“Language,” Red thundered from his seat, and a frown touched his face briefly before it smoothed back out into a smile.

Eric, ignoring his father, remained stood halfway down the staircase. He stayed staring at Hyde.

“Right, sorry,” he said. “It’s just… wow.”

“Jeez, thanks, Forman,” Hyde said, folding her arms across her chest. “Wish I could say the same to you, but I haven’t been impressed by your Spiderman boxers since we were ten.”

“Oh, honey. Why haven’t you started getting ready?” Mrs Forman asked, looking at Eric's undressed state with disappointment. At the same time Eric said, “Aaand the magic is gone, it’s still Hyde.”

Mrs Forman ignored him and continued, “I wanted to get a picture of you both all dressed up in your finery! Quickly, go get changed.”

Eric and Hyde caught one another’s eye.

“Oh, I really should be getting home now Mrs Forman,” Hyde said, inching towards the front door.

“Hyde’s gotta get home, Mom,” Eric said, pointing at Hyde and then running back up the stairs, two at a time.

Mrs Forman sighed, “Oh, alright, then. None of my kids will let me take pictures of them, I see how it is. Red, you’d better drive Suzie home. I don’t want her walking all that way in that dress.”

Red didn’t argue. Instead he picked his newspaper off of his lap, and standing up deposited it on the coffee table, “Come on then, Suzie. Let’s get you home.”

“I’m okay walking,” Suzie said, hand on the front door’s handle. “It’s not all that far.”

“If you think,” Red said, a finger pointing at her. “That I’m going to let you walk around town all dressed up as pretty as that, you’ve got another thing coming. Now get your ass in the Cruiser before I have to chase you down in the damn thing.”

(“Wait!” Mrs Forman called behind them, and they both turned. A flash, and Mrs Forman laughed. “Gotcha!” she turned tail and ran back into the house.

Red looked at Hyde, exasperation written in every line of his body with his hand on the door handle that he’d been about to open for her, “See, now. If you’d just taken the damn photograph with Eric! Now I’m in it.”

The photograph ended up printed off and framed, added to the collection of family pictures which decorated the upstairs hallway. Hyde did her best to pretend she didn’t know it was there.)

 

* * *

 

Days when Edna Hyde is at home: the wrong ones. Hyde had hoped to be able to sneak past her Ma when she heard the Lincoln pull up, but she’d been reading and completely missed it. Instead, Jack knocks on the door.

“Fuck,” Hyde muttered, hastily dogearing her page. She jumped up from her mattress and scurried through the hallway praying absently that her Ma had slept through the noise. She stepped into the kitchen and thought, _she’s slept through an actual fire once before, so maybe…_

Her Ma was propped up against the refrigerator, a lit cigarette dangling from her hand as she peered through the darkness at Hyde. No such luck.

“The fuck are you wearing?” she slurred, and Hyde noted the vodka sat on the counter next to an open load of bread. Huh, the bread was new. Maybe Edna had gone grocery shopping. Call Pastor Dave, a divine fucking miracle has occurred.

“Nothing, Ma,” she said, side stepping a ‘roach. She didn’t want to get stains on the bottom of her ridiculously shiny shoes. Jack had bought them and, given his general disdain for articles of clothing that cost anything under thirty bucks, if she could sell ‘em once the night was through Prom might actually turn up a win. “I’m going out.”

“Ain’t it Prom tonight?” Edna asked neutrally before taking a drag. Of course, the one time she actually _remembered_ something from work. “It is, isn’t it? You going to Prom, Suzie?” Hyde watched her warily.  

“I asked you a question, Suzie,” Edna said. Her voice was still bland but her eyes were cutting as knives as she looked her daughter up and down. That was her Ma right there. Softly, softly, and soon enough there’s an open palm hitting your cheek or nails biting harshly into your arm; softly, softly, and soon enough you learn softness is a trick designed to bring you close enough to strike. “You going to the goddamn Prom?”

“Yeah,” Hyde whispered, inching further closer to the doorway that led to the living room. She hated herself for her meekness, but goddamn she couldn’t ruin her face tonight. She cleared her throat, repeated a little stronger, “Yeah, I’m going to Prom.”

Jack knocked on the door again, a little louder this time.

Edna cackled and flicked her cigarette butt in Hyde’s direction and Hyde twisted desperately to avoid it landing on the dress, “They’re all gonna laugh at you!” She laughed hard enough to spur on a coughing fit.

Hyde took the chance and bolted, calling back behind her shoulder as she opened the front door, “Shut up, Ma! You’re making the night too damn special!”

If she was lucky Edna wouldn’t remember in the morning. If she was really lucky she’d choke on her own vomit in the night.

Hyde had never been particularly lucky.

 

* * *

 

Jack could hear talking inside, but it had been a couple of minutes since he’d knocked the first time so he tried again. He didn’t want to be standing around in this neighbourhood for too long, and he definitely didn’t want to leave his dad’s car parked in this neighbourhood for too long. He leant forward, angling his head to try and catch some of the conversation from inside. For all he knew, Hyde could have some stranger in there. They could be laughing about him, _at him_.

He could see it now, Hyde and some guy laughing at the dress he’d bought. He could just imagine her smirk as they laughed together about poor, stupid Jack Burkhart who thought _Suzie Hyde_ would be his key to maintaining his popularity in the face of Kelso’s unimaginable betrayal.

_No_ , Jack thought, _Hyde is… almost a friend. An acquaintance. She knows how lucky she is to have me take her to Prom. She… maybe knows how lucky she is. She definitely knows she could have worse!_ _She could have said yes to Don Readly._

“They’re all gonna laugh at you!” sounded from inside the house, and Jack jumped slightly. Okay, no strange men making fun of his choice of Prom dress for Hyde then. Not that Gross Edna precluded the potential for strange men, rather the opposite, but from what he’d heard Hyde tried her best to avoid them.

He wouldn’t admit it, but Gross Edna had always scared him a bit. His fear of her had only grown since he’d started hanging out in the basement. At first he’d assumed that Hyde’s scrapes and bruises were the result of her own shady dealings. Hyde was the only drug dealer he knew, okay? Television always showed them getting into shootouts and car chases. Yeah, Hyde only dealt with a little bit of weed and not, like, bricks of cocaine but this was Point Place. Marijuana was the Wisconsin equivalent of coke, he was sure.

And then one day, right after Fez had joined the gang, they’d been sitting around doing nothing at all. Kelso had been at the deep freeze grabbing popsicles for them all and when he’d chucked Hyde’s at her she’d gone to reach and ended up precariously balanced on her chair, curled in on herself. Wheezing and clutching at her side she’d waved off Forman’s dithering by the staircase with a shrug and a wince.

(“It’s fine. Just a couple of bruised ribs, shut your damn trap, Forman. You tell your Ma and I’ll give you the same damn treatment. Got a new ‘Uncle’, and a new curfew. Didn’t know ‘bout neither, but now I do. Won’t be forgetting.”)

After that it was impossible to meet Gross Edna’s eye in the cafeteria line again. Perhaps his parents could do to be more… present but at the very least they weren’t beating on him. Not that they would, of course. That sort of behaviour wasn’t the Burkhart way.

“Shut up, Ma! You’re making the night too damn special!”

The door swung open, and Jack hurriedly took a step back. He straightened out his jacket and tried his best to look as if just moments ago he hadn’t been trying his damndest to eavesdrop. Hyde stepped out, slamming the door behind her.

“Wow,” Jack breathed. He’d known, of course, that Hyde was gorgeous but the knowledge had always had the accompaniment of _in her own way_. Like, sure she was hot— but only if you were into that kind of thing. That kind of thing being bright red lips, wild hair, and the ability to make you feel about two foot tall with a single look. There’s no man alive, Jack is pretty sure, that isn’t into that kinda thing but, well. There’s the kind of girl you give a ride and there’s the kind of girl you marry, as his dad would say. Usually Hyde is the kind of girl you give a ride, but tonight…

“You look beautiful,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie or an exaggerated truth. She did. He’d been half afraid he was gonna arrive to find her stuffed unceremoniously in the dress he’d bought with her hair tangled in her face, bold lipstick firmly in place. Hell, he’d been half expecting the shades in place. That was, of course, if she didn’t drop out at the last minute as the mother of all burns.

Instead, her hair was in a half updo. Delicate ringlets framed her face perfectly, the rest carefully pulled back so as not to detract from the lace neckline of the dress. She was wearing eyeshadow and lipgloss, which was frankly beyond belief. He’d _hoped_ but not actually expected any of this.

“Yeah, I know,” Hyde said flippantly. The effect was ruined somewhat, however, by the way she was fidgeting under his gaze.

“And I look…” Jack trailed off, gesturing for her to continue his sentence. She looked him up and down, he tried not to preen too obviously. He looked amazing, he knew. Obviously he always looked gorgeous, but Jack Burkhart in formal attire was a sight to be seen.

“Frilly,” she said finally, nodding with a wolfish smirk curling around the corners of her lips. “You look frilly.”

“No!” Jack exclaimed, running a self conscious hand down the front of his shirt. Hyde glanced anxiously over her shoulder. “I look beautiful too!”

“Beautiful?” Hyde repeated dubiously, an eyebrow raised. “Sure, Doll. You’re the prettiest princess in all the land. Would you like me to recite a sonnet dedicated to your beauty? Ol’ Shakespeare has nothin’ on me.” She paused, tilting her head as if in deep thought.

“Not beautiful,” Jack retracted hastily, shaking his head as Hyde’s mouth opened again. He had an awful feeling that Hyde could burn even in iambic pentameter, and an awful knowledge that if she came out with it she’d repeat it later for the amusement of the gang. “Good looking. Handsome.”

“You’re gonna look black and blue if you don’t stop fishing for compliments,” Hyde said, placing one hand on a cocked hip and looking distinctly unimpressed. Which, unfair. He was looking too good for any woman to be unimpressed by. _Though_ , he supposed, _Hyde is just barely a girl at all_. “Not that you’re really fishing for ‘em, I suppose. More like chucking them at me and begging me to feed them back to you.”

“Ugh, fine,” Jack groaned, and shoved his hands in his pockets. He nodded at the door behind her, “Do I, uh… Do you want me to go and meet your mom?”

Hyde looked at him as if he were insane, which was fair. He felt insane for having offered.

“No, trust me, she’s lovely. Let’s just go,” Hyde said, ushering him from the porch with small and impatient pushes at his shoulder.

“God, Hyde. Stop pushing at me, you’re going to wrinkle my jacket. It’s dry clean only,” Jack grumbled as they reached the car. “Oh, hey,” he continued, perking up significantly. He caught her eye over his shoulder and pushed his ass out ridiculously. He took his final few steps in a strange waddle-like motion, “Don’t you think my ass looks good tonight? This one hundred percent American made ass?”

Hyde breathed deeply, her eyes closing momentarily as her nostrils flared slightly.

“You know,” she said, her voice pitched just audible. “It takes a lot for me to think that spending the night with Edna might be the better idea, but you’re just something fuckin’ else.”

Jack pouted and chucked the keys at her.

“On the other hand,” Hyde continued, keys clutched in her hand. “We’re such good buds.”

“Just get in and drive us,” Jack said, fixing his posture. “I _know_ my ass looks amazing, and you are welcome for the view.”

Any thoughts Hyde had about checking if Mr Burkhart’s insurance covered third party drivers immediately disappeared. The guy was loaded, he could afford it.

 

* * *

 

Prom sucks.

This is oddly both comforting and also a bit of a let down. Yeah, Hyde had always said that Prom was lame. But also, she’d kind of hoped that maybe it actually _wasn’t_. Like maybe she’d go and have some kind of magical high school experience.

But Prom is just the gym dressed up in streamers she was pretty sure originated from the dollar store and balloons which, given their lacklustre height, appeared to have been the victim of departmental budget cuts. There’s just no way they were filled with helium alone. That was a half and half job right there.

Jack dragged her for a picture. Jack dragged her for punch. Jack dragged her for a picture with Fez. Jack sighed, pouted, moaned loudly about how much he just _loved_ this song, and that song, and also this song.

“Jesus Christ,” Hyde groaned, watching him stare pitifully at where Kelso had his hands inching under the low back of Pam Macy’s atrocity of a dress. At least she could console herself with the fact that Jack hadn’t dressed her as a goddamn banana. “Do you want to dance, Burkhart?”

“No,” said Jack petulantly. If his bottom lip stuck any further out it would be in danger of being hit by passers by. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, flicking his gaze away as she met it squarely. They were sat next to each other at one of the tables. Jack was slumped over the back of his chair watching Kelso and Pam glumly as he had been almost the entire night; Hyde was slouched in her own seat with her head propped up on her fist as she watched him.

Jack snuck another glance at her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Yes, Burkhart?” Hyde replied with a sigh.

“Do you want to dance?” Jack asked. ‘

“Oh for—” Hyde stood abruptly and grabbed Jack’s hand. She yanked him up, ignoring his spluttering, and pulled him onto the makeshift dance floor. “Happy?” she asked, forcefully placing his hands on her hips. They swayed to the music, and Jack sighed. Across the room Eric was frantically gesticulating at her, then Jack, and then her again. She grimaced at him and he laughed before turning back to Donna.

Jack sighed again.

“Okay,” Hyde said lowly and pinched him roughly on the neck.

“Ow!” Jack exclaimed, jerking away from her. She kept her hold around his neck.

“I came to this stupid thing because you begged. I,” she said, raising an eyebrow to emphasise. “... do not want to be here. If I wanted to be here I woulda said yes to any one of the other morons who asked me. So get your shit together or I’m leaving you here to pout after Pam by yourself.”

Jack just pouted anew. Hyde unclasped her hands around his neck and went to step back.

“Wait!” Jack said, his grip on her hips tightening a fraction. “I’m sorry.”

The song changed, the tempo slowing further. In the corner Eric and Donna were whispering sweetly to one another, and behind Jack Pam and Kelso seemed to making an attempt for second base right there on the dance floor.

“It’s just not fair,” Jack continued. “I was meant to be here with Pam. Kelso stole her and I’m here with you, which _isn’t_ how I thought tonight was going to go at all.”

And, see. That should be insulting, but Jack’s eyes have gone just a little misty and he’s blinking way too much for Hyde’s comfort. So, instead of being insulted, Hyde’s mostly just panicking. She was trying to _help_ Jack by coming along to this stupid dance, and now she’s made him cry on the dance floor.

“Well,” she said, her gaze darting around. “If it makes you feel any better, Pam’s butt looks huge in that dress.”

Jack laughed, albeit a little wetly, “So you can appreciate Pam Macy’s ass, but not mine?”

Hyde shrugged, “Hers is just so hard to miss, man.”

“No it’s not,” Jack said dejectedly. “It’s perfect.”

Hyde rolled her eyes and stepped back. Jack’s eyes widened, “Sorry, sorry! We can stop talking about Pam’s butt!”

The couples closest to them gave them strange looks. Hyde took no notice, they’d been getting strange looks since they’d arrived. Or, Hyde had been getting strange looks since she’d arrived. Just as she’d never expected to come to Prom, no one at Prom had expected her to turn up. Let alone for her to turn up in a dress with her hair and makeup all done. She had a corsage, for fuck sake.

(“Oh!” Jack had exclaimed as they idled at a stop sign. He’d undone his seatbelt and turned to dig around at the backseat. “I have something for you,” he’d said before unceremoniously dumping the corsage box in her lap.

“Thanks,” Hyde had said drily. “It really completes my outfit.”

“Right?!” Jack had agreed happily.)

“I’m just going to get some punch, you idiot,” Hyde said, and walked off to do just that. Dodging couples who had, by this point in the night, mostly given up the pretense of dancing for the far more entertaining tradition of making out while swaying she made her way to the punch table.

“Please, God,” she muttered under her breath as she poured a cup. “Let this be spiked.”

“It’s not,” came Kelso’s voice behind her. “I forgot.”

Hyde whimpered and turned her eyes to the ceiling, “Why hath thou forsaken me, Lord?”

“I didn’t know you were religious,” Kelso said, sounding perplexed. Hyde turned to face him and shrugged. Pam loitered a couple of paces behind Kelso, glaring at Hyde halfheartedly.

“Sometimes prayer is all you’ve got, dude,” she said. “Like, right now? I’m praying to be anywhere but here with Jack.”

Kelso guffawed, Hyde’s newfound religiosity immediately forgotten, “Oh, man! What’s with that?”

Hyde just looked at him blankly. Kelso looked blankly back. Hyde looked pointedly at Pam. Kelso’s brow furrowed.

“Pam!” Hyde finally exploded, pointing at her.

“Yes?” Pam asked, stepping closer.

Kelso grinned dopily at her and dropped an arm around her shoulder. “Hey, baby,” he said.

Hyde rubbed at her temple wearily before continuing, “Kelso, you dogged Jack by stealing his date—” Here she pointed at Pam, “Yes. Hello, Pam. And then he whined at me to replace her until I gave in to save myself from having to rip my ears off with my bare hands.”

“What?” said Pam, looking confused. She looked up at Kelso whose countenance had turned suddenly very uncomfortable, “Kelso, you said that Jack didn’t want to bring me to Prom anymore because he had to have a hair transplant. I thought it was weird, because he has such luscious hair—” She leant forward to whisper conspiratorially to Hyde, “There’s just no way that’s not natural, you can always tell.”

Hyde raised her eyebrows and nodded, “Oh, definitely.”

“And then when he showed up I definitely knew something was fishy,” Pam continued in her normal tone. “Because you don’t ditch _me_ for _that_ ,” she looked down at her chest and then pointed at Hyde snidely. “You just don’t.”

Kelso nodded, “That’s true.”

Hyde looked Pam up and down, “Sure, Doll.”

Pam sneered at her before lifting Kelso’s arm off of her shoulder.

“Well,” said Pam airily. “This explains everything. I’m going to dance with Jack.”

Kelso gawped at her, “Uh! No fair! You’re here with me!”

Pam looked at him, disinterest painted across her features, “And?”  

“And!” Kelso exclaimed, digging his hand into the trouser pocket and triumphantly pulling out a key. “And we have a motel room for the night!”

“Aw,” cooed Pam, stepping closer to him. She snatched the key from his hand, “I think you’ll find that rich boy _Jack_ and I have a motel room for the night. Who knows, maybe his little ‘Apollo rocket of love’ might not be so… little.”

With that last cutting remark she flounced off. Hyde and Kelso watched her approach Jack, whose dismal countenance magically transformed into immediate enthusiasm as she gestured to the dance floor.

“Burkhart just dogged me!” Kelso exclaimed, watching them dejectedly.

“... Apollo rocket of love?” Hyde repeated faintly beside him.

“Burkhart just dogged me!” Kelso exclaimed, this time louder as he glanced around them anxiously and he shushed her hurriedly. “Shut up, Hyde!”

“ _Apollo rocket of love_ ,” Hyde said again, this time through peals of laughter. Kelso shrieked, and she laughed harder, actually bending over from the force of it.

“Shut up!”

“I’m sorry,” she said soberly, straightening up as the laughter receded from her voice. “This isn’t funny.”

“Too right it’s not!” Kelso agreed, frowning heavily. Pam and Jack were already heading for the door after just half of a song. As they went to leave Jack turned and looked around the hall, meeting her eye he sent her a hasty thumbs up before hustling after Pam.

“It’s not funny,” Hyde repeated. “It’s _hilarious_ , you little Apollo rocket of love, you.”

“ _Hyde!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk pals. also tenses are not my friends. or any aspect of writing but ya know. call out any typos or glaring errors u see. proofreading is for pussies (my academic supervisor also hates me xxx)


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